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MoreGreen Art Rises in Taiwan
 Wu Ma-li is among Taiwan’s foremost environmental artists. (Photo Courtesy of Wu Ma-li) Local artists are beginning to address concerns about the environment and people’s relationship to the natural world.
Early this year, Taiwanese artist Julie Chou created a “green art” project while she was an artist in residence at Treasure Hill Community in Taipei. “When the basic pattern was done, I divided the garden into sections and let community residents take over and grow vegetables on their own lots,” Chou says. “The garden became a community center, with many visitors passing by and residents coming to tend their plants. The effect was big; some residents began to clean their front courtyards and started planting them again. Some even came forward to ask if they could grow more vegetables on other unused land. Through planting and growing, the community seemed to come alive again.”
Chou worked with community residents to create an organic garden and art installation at the historic squatter’s village that has recently become a site for international artist in residency projects. Her project, titled “Treasure Hill Spring Garden,” had its formal opening on March 27 with a community spring equinox celebration. It was designed and built with the cooperation of Treasure Hill residents, including children and elders, who will continue to care for it and harvest the produce.
Over the last five years, art festivals, exhibitions and international art projects with an environmental or green theme have been on the rise in Taiwan. Green art is a broad category that goes by various names such as environmental art or ecological art (often shortened to “eco-art”) as well as Earth art, land art and art in nature. This type of art is usually site-specific—meaning that it is designed for and made in a particular place—and uses natural materials or materials that do not harm the environment. It is often temporary, ephemeral or changing over time and designed to improve or rehabilitate the environment. It also often involves collaboration and the participation of local communities. The website at www.greenmuseum.org defines environmental art as “art that improves our relationship with the natural world.”
While Taiwan has had a political party called the Green Party since 1996 and the Cabinet-level Environmental Protection Administration since 1987, as well as a growing number of NGOs that aim to protect and preserve the environment, it is only in the last five years or so that Taiwan’s artists have begun to make green art works in natural areas. This is changing, however, and many local artists see environmental issues and humanity’s relationship with the natural world as a growing problem for Taiwan and are addressing this in their art.
Local residents of Taipei’s Treasure Hill Community work on a garden project by artist Julie Chou. (Photo Courtesy of Julie Chou) The West has definitely influenced contemporary green art in Taiwan, but the new environmental art by local artists presents a uniquely Taiwanese point of view. Wu Ma-li is one of the foremost contemporary Taiwanese artists who, since 2006, has focused her work on environmental issues. Wu is an assistant professor in the Graduate Institute of Interdisciplinary Art at National Kaohsiung Normal University in southern Taiwan. She continues to expand her work to include curating and organizing collaborative public art projects that involve groups of artists working with local communities. In By the River, on the River, of the River in 2006, Wu worked with students from several community universities tracing the four rivers that surround Taipei and bringing public attention to the environmental issues surrounding water resources and pollution. “Art as Environment—A Cultural Action on the Tropic of Cancer,” undertaken from 2005 to 2007 in southern Taiwan’s Chiayi County, was another community-focused art project organized by Wu that included 30 artists working on individual pieces in Chiayi communities to help local people realize the importance of conserving the environment. At the 2008 Taipei Biennial held at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, she worked with a Taipei-based environmental organization to present an interactive and collaborative environmental art project, titled Taipei Tomorrow as a Lake Again. This installation art project focused on the possible effects of global warming on the Taipei area and resulted in the establishment of an organic garden in the museum.
Another important Taiwanese artist who has focused on environmental issues in his recent work is Yang Chin Chih, a performance and installation artist now living in New York City. “My projects interpret nature as a process that develops with human life,” Yang says. “I don’t see an absolute discrepancy between man and nature, and believe much of the environmental problems humanity is imposing on the natural world stem from a false belief that man is somehow different from nature. In truth, we are one, like the different sides of a single coin.” Many of Yang’s public performance art projects have taken place in New York City such as his 2009 work Carry Water, which involved various ceremonial acts of carrying water on the streets of the city to draw attention to the importance of water for human life.
Green at Guandu
The Trap by Karin van der Molen from the Netherlands. The piece was created for an eco-art show at the National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium in Pingtung County in 2009. (Photo by Jane Ingram Allen) The Guandu International Outdoor Sculpture Festival was probably the first truly “green” outdoor sculpture exhibition in Taiwan. Wu Lingi, then executive director of Guandu Nature Park, initiated the international environmental art event in 2006, involving contemporary artists from Taiwan and other countries to create site-specific outdoor sculpture installations using natural materials and focusing on environmental issues. The author was the founding curator of that event and also participated by creating a work for the show. In speaking about the first Guandu Sculpture Festival, Wu says the exhibition gave visitors a new perspective on the park. “Our fields could become like [canvasses] for the artists to draw and create their artworks there,” she says. “The artworks also gave visitors a different point of view and gave them something else to see in Guandu Nature Park [outside] the birding season.”
The art project was also unique because it entailed the cooperation of scientists and nature educators with artists to present contemporary art in a nature preserve and highlight the importance of conserving wetlands and natural areas in Taipei’s very urban environment. The festival has continued as an annual event since its founding. It is sponsored by Guandu Nature Park and the Wild Bird Society of Taipei and supported by Taipei City Government and the Council for Cultural Affairs, as well as receiving assistance from corporate sponsors and community volunteers.
The success of the Guandu event has spawned a number of similar green art exhibitions in Taiwan at museums, nature preserves and other organizations with an interest in nature and the environment. In 2009, the National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium (NMMBA) in Pingtung County held an international art exhibition about marine environmental issues titled “Turning the Tide.” Wu Lingi, who started the Guandu Festival, also had the idea for the first environmental art project at the NMMBA, saying that she thought it “might be interesting this time to try to make a link between science and art” given that marine biology, fish and sea animals are the focus of the museum. “We were happy to see the science volunteers start to create a bamboo structure, weave the string and stuff the sculptures [working alongside] the artists, and also to have the artists thinking about pollution in the oceans and the problems of the marine environment,” Wu says. “It was a great exchange between artists and scientists and the public.”
In April 2010, the first Cheng Long Wetlands International Environmental Art Project was held at its namesake wetlands, a rural area in Yunlin County, southwestern Taiwan. The wetlands were created by a series of natural disasters and human error, but are now home to many birds and other wildlife. The project, which was repeated this year, encourages local people to appreciate and protect the wetlands. The 2010 exhibition was sponsored by the Kuan Shu Educational Foundation. Wang Chao-mei, the head educator for the foundation’s environmental programs in Cheng Long, is the chief administrator for the project. “Aesthetic education is a part of environmental education; it helps open people’s eyes and minds to appreciate the beauty of the world,” Wang says. “The art project in Cheng Long plays a similar role. When the artworks were installed, the wetlands became totally different for villagers; they learned how to see the wetlands with different viewpoints.”
Art Education, Exchange
Pan Ping-yu, center, explains Ark for Plants to visitors to the “Going Green” exhibition at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education in Philadelphia. (Photo by Jane Ingram Allen) The participating artists lived and worked in Cheng Long for two weeks. They provided environmental art education and cultural exchange opportunities, and worked with local elementary school children, adults and volunteers to create site-specific environmental sculpture installations in the wetlands.
Taipei artist Lo Yi-chun’s work, titled Listening, recalled the shape of conch shells and functioned as a place to watch the birds and listen to the sounds of the wetlands. The installation was also created with a large amount of public participation including children of all ages. Lo says the project was a unique experience because Cheng Long is a place that tourists rarely visit and it retains much of the atmosphere of a small traditional village. The interaction with school children and other members of the community was an especially exciting part of the project. “This art project seems like a primer for the village. Community residents may change their thoughts by the energy of the artistic influence on the environment and wetland that people saw and participated in,” she says. “They will begin to form different ideas of how to live and treasure what they own.”
The second Cheng Long International Environmental Art Project, “Children and Artists Dream of Greener Wetlands,” took place from April 8 to May 2 this year, with five artists creating environmental art installations in the wetlands in cooperation with volunteers, local children and other residents. The artists selected for the 2011 project were Firman Djamil from Indonesia, Rumen Dimitrov from Bulgaria, Karen Macher Nesta from Peru, and Julie Chou and Huang Hsin-yu from Taiwan. The show will run until July 30.
Meanwhile, 2010 also saw the launch of another two international environmental art projects. At Ping Ling Farm in Shuangxi District, New Taipei City, Roger Tibon from the Philippines, Lo Yi-chun and the author were invited to create site-specific installations using local natural materials. The focus was on raising community awareness about environmental issues. The Ping Ling Farm event was the first green art project held at a private nature preserve in Taiwan and received support from the Forestry Bureau. The project also included educational programs about art and the environment.
Taiwan on Tour
Children and other visitors interact with a work by Lo Yi-chun (inset) at the inaugural Cheng Long Wetlands International Art Project in 2010. (Photo by Jane Ingram Allen) Another major event for 2010 was “Going Green: New Environmental Art from Taiwan,” a traveling exhibition organized by the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York. The exhibit toured four cities in the United States: Queens Botanical Garden in New York City; the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education and Asian Arts Initiative in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Accident Gallery in Eureka, California; and the Art and Design Gallery of the University of North Carolina. The exhibition, supported by Taiwan’s Council for Cultural Affairs, was conceived as a multi-media, multi-venue exhibition that explored how Taiwanese artists are responding to a rapidly changing environment and environmental degradation.
The show featured the works of 16 contemporary Taiwanese artists, eight of whom lived and worked for two weeks in one of the four American communities. It also gave residents in those four communities a chance to interact one-on-one with the visiting Taiwanese artists. Pan Ping-yu of Taipei traveled to Philadelphia to create Ark for Plants, an installation at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education. Pan’s installation stressed the importance of preserving plants and involved building a protective boat-like form of fallen branches with a native tree seedling planted inside. For Pan, the experience of “being there” was what made the “Going Green” exhibition so unique. “The site-specific works and documentation provided rich layers of experience for the viewers; the audience could approach the issues via different routes,” Pan says.
Mary Salvante, art director at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education, said that the “Going Green” exhibition enriched the center’s environmental art program and was their first project involving international artists. The art director says she was struck by the “Taiwanese approach” to creating green art. “What was an interesting contrast was the infusion of cultural traditions and perspectives that are not evident as much in environmental works created by American artists,” Salvante says. “American artists are moving more and more into the realm of science and a functional outcome of their environmental art practices.”
Julie Chou puts the final touches on an artwork for this year’s project at Cheng Long. (Photo by Jane Ingram Allen) “Culturally, Americans also still by and large apply greater value to tangible outcomes. The works by the two Taiwanese artists were much more motivated by the spiritual connections to nature, and by engaging the viewer this way the experience is much more personal and introspective and intangible,” she says.
As these recent exhibitions attract attention to green art in Taiwan, the number of Taiwanese art events with an environmental theme continues to rise, with several projects in the works for this year. Taiwanese artist and curator Wu Ma-li is working on a new green art project with Bamboo Curtain Studio, Taipei, titled “Art as Environment—A Cultural Action at the Plum Tree Creek.” Plum Tree Creek is a small stream that originates in the mountains just outside Taipei and flows through New Taipei City’s Zhuwei community in Danshui District, before going underground and becoming polluted with sewage as it drains into the Danshui River. Although many urban dwellers might not even be aware of this creek and its ecological problems, the stream banks were once known for having many beautiful plum trees.
Plum Tree Project
As part of Wu’s project, local residents have again planted plum trees along the creek’s banks so that children can see the trees grow as they attempt to change the environment of the area. “It’s an ongoing project with many artists, community architects and planners,” Wu says. “We hope to help transform the Plum Tree Creek area into an eco village in the future.”
The 17-month long project, presented by Bamboo Culture International and organized by Bamboo Curtain Studio located in Zhuwei community, has received funding from the National Culture and Arts Foundation. The project began in March 2011, and will conclude with exhibitions in July 2012. Plans for the project include sculptor and environmental artist Margaret Shiu working with area elementary school students to produce a collaborative art exhibition about the creek and environmental issues. Felix Chang, who specializes in using plants for art, plans to create natural dyeing art with local residents and produce a collaborative exhibition, while Rong Shu-Hwa, who teaches at the Graduate Institute of Arts and Humanities Education at Taipei National University of the Arts, will collect stories about Plum Tree Creek from local people and plans a collaborative theater performance.
Volunteers install a work by Huang Hsin-yu at this year’s Cheng Long Wetlands International Art Project, which runs until July 30. (Photo by Jane Ingram Allen)
Other green art projects in Taiwan this year include the sixth annual Guandu International Outdoor Sculpture Festival scheduled to open on October 1 at Guandu Nature Park in Taipei.
Green art continues to develop and gain strength locally as more exhibitions and more contemporary artists address environmental issues. Taiwan is a small island nation that has gone through rapid industrialization and extreme urbanization along with fierce natural disasters and manmade problems such as pollution, which make it a sort of microcosm of global environmental problems. Green art, or environmental art, can be seen as a useful tool to raise public awareness and promote action that can help to solve these challenges.
____________________________ Copyright © 2011 by Jane Ingram Allen
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