Tien Zong-yuan

“The passing of time would be meaningful and memorable only when something happens.” Commissioned by Chiayi Art Museum, the crew revisit locations where photographer FANG Ching-mian, known as Uncle Hsin-kao, shot 70 years ago in Yushan (Niitakayama). The story of Uncle Hsin-kao and landscapes is told by interweaving a variety of climbers, scenery and Bunun Narration. The narration implies the presence and absence of certain characters in Taiwan history. Through the off-screen voice, a layer of discourse is created with the narrator's role, Bunun's lines, and the images. The absence of the indigenous people in the history of photography, the presence and revisit of the crew, the reports and postcards created by Uncle Hsin-kao reveal a poetic story between Uncle Hsin-kao and landscapes.

The Tropic of Cancer tells the story of three sisters living in a small coastal village. Their home – which they share with snails, crabs, and other wandering creatures – sits low on the shoreline and has been flooded by the sea in the past. Now, time is about to begin moving backward. A returning surveyor keeps warning them about this coming reversal. As time starts to unravel, the sisters understand that the water will return as well. They start preparing as military planes sweep across the sky like bats. Water, animals, plants, and objects washed ashore by the waves coexist in a state of anticipation, waiting for the transformation that the returning sea will bring.

One after another, female Vietnamese laborers arrive, suitcases in hand, at a dormitory from another dimension, cluttered with bunk beds and clothes. Here, they exchange their experiences, culminating in a unique upheaval.

Suthat, a young man from the northeastern part of Thailand, has worked in Taiwan for six years. He does not aim to save money, nor does he have any plans for the future. He has just moved to Taichung. Four months ago, he visited the ASEAN Square for the first time. It was in a Thai disco club that he met the film crew that was scouting locations and looking for materials for a production to be shown in a group exhibition at MoCA Taipei in May. For reasons unknown, the film crew invited Suthat to join the film. That day, Suthat came to the ASEAN Square to celebrate the Songkran festival with his friends. During the past four months, he has made quite a few friends; and today, the film crew with a Thai interpreter became his new friends.

On the way up Yushan takes the journeys of Mr. Wu Rong-Fu and Mr. Lin Chang-An as the axes of narrative. The two individuals had some "modifying" on the top of Yushan. Their lives are intimately tied with Yushan. The personal narratives branched out along the way, the unexpected events on the halfway, and the anonymous landscapes, the mountain of memories via hands and materials as well as imaginations and recollections. Though they never meet, through the film, they'd have a chance to walk aside.

“The passing of time would be meaningful and memorable only when something happens.” Commissioned by Chiayi Art Museum, the crew revisit locations where photographer FANG Ching-mian, known as Uncle Hsin-kao, shot 70 years ago in Yushan (Niitakayama). The story of Uncle Hsin-kao and landscapes is told by interweaving a variety of climbers, scenery and Bunun Narration. The narration implies the presence and absence of certain characters in Taiwan history. Through the off-screen voice, a layer of discourse is created with the narrator's role, Bunun's lines, and the images. The absence of the indigenous people in the history of photography, the presence and revisit of the crew, the reports and postcards created by Uncle Hsin-kao reveal a poetic story between Uncle Hsin-kao and landscapes.

The Tropic of Cancer tells the story of three sisters living in a small coastal village. Their home – which they share with snails, crabs, and other wandering creatures – sits low on the shoreline and has been flooded by the sea in the past. Now, time is about to begin moving backward. A returning surveyor keeps warning them about this coming reversal. As time starts to unravel, the sisters understand that the water will return as well. They start preparing as military planes sweep across the sky like bats. Water, animals, plants, and objects washed ashore by the waves coexist in a state of anticipation, waiting for the transformation that the returning sea will bring.

One after another, female Vietnamese laborers arrive, suitcases in hand, at a dormitory from another dimension, cluttered with bunk beds and clothes. Here, they exchange their experiences, culminating in a unique upheaval.

Suthat, a young man from the northeastern part of Thailand, has worked in Taiwan for six years. He does not aim to save money, nor does he have any plans for the future. He has just moved to Taichung. Four months ago, he visited the ASEAN Square for the first time. It was in a Thai disco club that he met the film crew that was scouting locations and looking for materials for a production to be shown in a group exhibition at MoCA Taipei in May. For reasons unknown, the film crew invited Suthat to join the film. That day, Suthat came to the ASEAN Square to celebrate the Songkran festival with his friends. During the past four months, he has made quite a few friends; and today, the film crew with a Thai interpreter became his new friends.

On the way up Yushan takes the journeys of Mr. Wu Rong-Fu and Mr. Lin Chang-An as the axes of narrative. The two individuals had some "modifying" on the top of Yushan. Their lives are intimately tied with Yushan. The personal narratives branched out along the way, the unexpected events on the halfway, and the anonymous landscapes, the mountain of memories via hands and materials as well as imaginations and recollections. Though they never meet, through the film, they'd have a chance to walk aside.