Abandoning the Garden
2022, Sep. 07th-2022, Nov. 13th
“All That Solid Melt Into Air”,
Taoyuan Public Assembly Hall, Taoyuan
2023, Mar. 25th
Our Place, Taipei
2024, May. 18th-2024, Aug. 09th
“ENSAMBLAJE ENZARZADO”,
Azul Arena, Ciudad Juárez
In 1978, to commemorate the tenth anniversary of RCA's establishment in Taiwan, the Taoyuan RCA factory held a garden donation ceremony - half of the original parking lot was converted into a garden, and was given as a symbolic gift to a Taoyuan RCA-staff-representative by a director from the US headquarters. In 2018, the image of the garden donation ceremony appeared in Huang Li-Hui's "Reversi RCA Edition" (Reversi is also known as Othello). "Abandoning the Garden" attempted to use the RCA story as a prototype, and combine the relevant historical records, the documents from "Reversi RCA ", and observations about the current situation at the previous-factory site, to show the recurring industrialization fable in Taoyuan.
Since "Reversi RCA" left behind a large amount of documentation (including video footage and objects), I had trouble figuring out how to present them. To me, it didn’t make much sense to simply display the documentation as a record of the "Reversi RCA". What I thought about doing was to reorganize the documentation so that it could show different aspects of the same topic. Four years after "Reversi RCA", I had an opportunity to do just that, thanks to an exhibition invitation at Taoyuan Public Assembly Hall. What struck me was that during these four years, the documentation was gradually damaged. It was not just the documentation that was damaged, but also several participants that were in "Reversi RCA". The previous RCA factory site has also changed during this time. In 2018, we could still freely enter the former parking lot / garden of this area, but in 2022, the area had been surrounded by corrugated sheet iron walls, reminding each person passing by that it was (and still is) private property. People who have moved to the neighborhood in the past two decades have no idea what happened behind these walls, even if they pass by them every day. That was why I decided to apply the documentation of "Reversi RCA" to tell a quasi-sci-fictional story that would arouse others' interest in exploring what was behind these walls.
★ Taoyuan Public Assembly Hall ★
At the exhibition at the Taoyuan Public Assembly Hall in 2022, I reconstructed the "Time Tunnel" produced in "Reversi RCA". Unlike the audience in 2018 who could see the front of “the time-space change” of the RCA factory site, what the audience in 2022 could see from the front was an image of a "mural," a painting that somewhat depicts a “Western-style leisure scene,” that I saw on a corrugated-sheet-iron wall outside of the previous RCA factory site to "beautify the environment".
The "Mural"
After the audience walked through the "Time Tunnel", they could finally see the setup that was shown in "Reversi RCA" four years ago.
The installation of "Abandoning the Garden" at Taoyuan Public Assembly Hall
In the center of the area surrounded by the "Time Tunnel", there was a CRT TV, which was similar to the type of TV made by the Taiwan RCA factory, playing the video "Abandoning the Garden". When the audience watched "Abandoning the Garden" in this setup, they might discover how the setup they were in was formed.
The video excerpt from "Abandoning the Garden" 19'03"
On the white wall opposite of the TV, an article was hung. The article (which also appeared in "Reversi RCA") from the "RCA Family" (a publication only released inside of the company) is about RCA's contribution to the space program "Apollo 15".
In "Reversi RCA", the former RCA employees left their body outlines on the inner layer of the "Time Tunnel". In "Abandoning the Garden", I placed a black reversi piece in front of each of their outlines, along with the gloves and rags they used in "Reversi RCA". Some of the gloves and rags were missing, while others were moldy and stuck together.
Besides being exhibited at Taoyuan Public Assembly Hall in 2022, "Abandoning the Garden" also was shown at "Our Place" in Taipei in 2023, and at the "Arena Azul" in Ciudad Juárez in 2024. Due to its fragility and other constraints, the "Time Tunnel" could not be reconstructed at these two locations, therefore I had to redesign the display of this work for each of the venues.
★ Our Place ★
The space of "Our Place" is a residential room, so it is relatively small. Besides projecting the video of "Abandoning the Garden" on one of the walls, the black pieces were scattered into a Milky-Way-like pattern on the floor, with a used rag inside of each. On the wall opposite of the projection wall, the article about the Apollo 15 project from the "RCA Family" was displayed. Next to the article, a star night light was installed, which projected an image of a rotating starry sky that overlapped part of the video, and also projected on to the "Milky Way" on the floor.
★ Arena Azul ★
There is also an RCA factory in Ciudad Juárez, and showing "Abandoning the Garden" in this context brings out another interesting contrast. The curator, Edgar, actually found an RCA TV made in a Mexican factory for my exhibit. This was a surprise to me, because RCA TVs made in Taiwan were mainly exported to other countries and are rarely found in Taiwan. For the display in Arena Azul space, there was an RCA TV in the corner in front of the video projection, and a star night light was hung above the TV. The TV was turned-on, but only showing static on the screen. Around the TV was the black reversi piece “Milky Way”, which was illuminated by the starry sky projection and the light slightly reflected from the TV screen.
