煉身史
Date:
2021/05/15 – 2021/07/10
Venue:
Artist:
LO Yi-Chun 羅懿君
LIN Yi-Chun 林怡君
CHANG Chih-Chung 張致中
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Artists participate in the exhibition PLAYBOUR take three material closely related to Taiwan’s development, including cane sugar, sulfur, and coral as their points of departure, respectively. The artists explore the cultural memories hidden beneath folds of natural landscape that stretch across the flatlands, mountains, and oceans, which interweave with the distribution of industrial resources.
The landscape explored in this exhibition originates in Taiwan; yet, it also reveals the traces and marks of violence, war, colonization, and the geopolitical battle between Taiwan and other nations. From this, we may also find out that choices of all kinds of interests, sentimental value and material worth are greatly influenced by globalization at large. In comparison, the artists attempt to manifest the increasingly latent ideological tendency of interest and profit and the intensifying interrelation of body-society with their physical movements and the transition of senses. Here come the issues: How do the laboring (restricted, exploited, and moralized) bodies formulate the contemporary scenes of everyday life? How does today’s material and spiritual culture shape every individual?
As the natural treasures are transformed and mutated in the process of chrysopoeia, they continue to intrigue humankind and propel them to a divided, precarious, and antagonistic bio-political situation. As intellectuals, while artists are concerning the thoughtful intervention and practices of the history of laboring, they may attempt to find a focal point in the process of dynamic struggle, using imagination (or practices) to reverse everyday life.
煉身史的展出藝術家各自以蔗糖、硫磺與珊瑚三個與台灣歷史發展密切相連的物質切入，挖掘藏於平地、山海之間綿延的自然地景皺褶之下，與產業資源分配相互交織的文化記憶。
此展探勘的地景始於台灣，卻也溯源擴散出暴力、征戰、殖民的軌跡，以及台灣與各國的地緣角力，直至今日生活的種種利益與身心價值的選擇，都脫不出全球化的影響。而藝術家將越趨隱而不顯的利益/價值暗流，以及越趨深密的身體/社會滲透扣連，或以肉身運動、或以感官過渡的方式將之顯影：勞動的(被制約、剝削、教化的)身體如何堆砌出當代的生活地景? 今日的物質與精神文化又如何形塑每一個個體？
當源於自然的寶藏在煉金過程的形變與轉化，持續牽引著人類將之推往分裂、脆弱與對立的生命政治情境，藝術家作為知識份子，關照勞動歷史的思考切入與實踐，或許就是試圖在動態拉扯的過程中找到錨定點，用想像（或是勞作）反轉生活。
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