The Portrait
and Self-Portrait of the Wall
First Prize / Beyond the Wall - DAMUVAD 2018 Scholarship Competition
“Is it the arrival of the past? Or is it the creation of the new history?”
Portrait 1910 (Object)
Once upon a time, this brick was part of the city wall of Taipei in the late Qing Dynasty. The city wall of Taipei was built from Andesite Rock and Quartz Sandstone. Less than 30 years, the city wall was demolished by the Japanese during the Japanese ruled period.
Bricks of the south city wall were transported to build the Taipei execution ground.
After Second World War, it was renamed to Taipei Prison. The 20m wall of the prison is currently the only remaining ancient city wall in Taipei City.
The remains of this wall include an arch of about 2.5 meters in height, which was the corpse door.
It is said that hundreds of anti-Japanese and post-war prisoners were strangled and executed and passed through the gate...
The wall is a portrait depicting the history of Taiwan’s resistance to authoritarianism and symbolizing the outline of sacrifice.
“Whatever changes they go through, whatever progress they make, in the end, it’s only a step on the road to decay.” Pinball, 1973 (1980) Haruki Murakami
Unfold 2018
The brick wall is made from a brick of the same specifications, but the stone wall is made from different stones, no stone is the same.
Each stone has its own personality and it must be paired with each other before it can be stacked.
No matter how perfect the stone wall stacked, there will always be gaps that provide opportunities for natural.
Nature changes through time, so the stone wall is always in the status of constantly becoming.
The process of natural growth while the collapse of the stone wall makes it stronger, the collapse of the wall is a natural construction.
“Is it going to be the digitalized nature? Or will it be the natural digital?”
Self-portrait 2126 (Subject)
The wall is digitalized and has its own consciousness.
“I know myself and I feel the environment;
I arrange information and combine consciousness through nature,
I understand myself and express my emotions through nature.
I’m neither produced nor destroyed, neither defiled nor immaculate, neither increasing nor decreasing. Therefore in emptiness there is neither form.”
