Mystical and Spiritual Worlds in Contemporary Taiwanese Art

Joni Low With Roots Skyward: Mystical and Spiritual Worlds in Contemporary Taiwanese Art

he afternoon I visited the University of British Columbia (UBC) Museum of Anthropology’s exhibition (In)visible: The Spiritual TWorld of Taiwan through Contemporary Art (November 20, 2015–April 3, 2016), I serendipitously ran into Beau Dick, a renowned Kwakwaka’wakw chief and current artist-in-residence at UBC, whose exhibition was concurrently displayed at the nearby Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, also at UBC.1 In an unexpected yet meaningful encounter, Beau and a fellow artist, Vanessa Grondin, joined me on my walk through (In)visible. His presence completely transformed my experience of the exhibition, allowing me to draw parallels between the spiritual explorations of Indigenous Taiwanese artists and our Paciﬁc Northwest coast First Nations artists and their deep connections to the land and traditional practices of both. It prompted me to think more deeply about the politics of representation and display and about the openness to spiritual questions in both contemporary art and anthropological frameworks in exhibition contexts.

The Great Hall, Museum of Anthropology, UBC, Vancouver.

The Museum of Anthropology, a handsome concrete and glass building perched atop a cliff in Point Grey, Vancouver, was designed by Arthur Erickson to acknowledge the cultural importance of Canada’s First Nations. Based on the layout of a Haida waterfront village, it brings together a diverse range of historic cultural architectures, from Haida post-and-beam structures to the torii style gates reminiscent of Japanese Shinto shrines. The back of the museum hosts the great hall, with a large a surface of glass that

98 Vol. 15 No. 3 Vanessa Grondin and Beau opens out to ample natural light and ocean views, connecting totem poles Dick with installation by Li Jiun-Yang, Miao, 2003–13, displayed inside with those installed outside, among nearby indigenous in the exhibition (In)visible. 2 Photo: Joni Low. plantings. All of this is situated on the traditional, unceded territory of the Musqueam people, who for thousands of years moved through these territories to ﬁsh, hunt, and gather, maintaining their livelihood while practicing cultural traditions.3 The museum houses over 38,000 artifacts, which, due to recent innovations in their museum displays, are now accessible to visitors at all times through Plexiglas storage cases and drawers. The space echoes the histories of violence and colonialism in an unsettling way, particularly in what it chooses to carry forward: in addition to critical questions about how these items were collected, one of three circular World War II gun emplacements, a symbol of violence and protectionism, has been repurposed as the base for Bill Reid’s majestic cedar sculpture The Raven and the First Man (1980). One must physically move through this conﬂicted history—past rows of cedar carved boxes, totems, agate bowls and carved masks, and Reid’s sculpture—to enter the exhibition, which is tucked away in the museum’s space for temporary exhibitions at the far corner of the building.

(In)visible charts the diverse spiritual world of Taiwan through the work of seven contemporary Taiwanese artists, exploring how modernity and tradition coalesce with a range of cultural inﬂuences and religious beliefs. Taiwan is home to sixteen ofﬁcially recognized aboriginal groups of Austronesian peoples who have lived on the island for over 8,000 years, in addition to Han Chinese and other settlers and immigrants. As described by

Vol. 15 No. 3 99 anthropologist and curator Dr. Fuyubi Nakamura, the island experienced waves of colonization—from the Portuguese, Dutch, and Spanish in the seventeenth centuries to the Chinese, who annexed Taiwan in 1683. This was followed by a fifty-year Japanese occupation that ended in 1945, after Japan’s defeat in World War II, when Taiwan was turned over to the Kuomintang (KMT), or Chinese Nationalist Party, which ruled through martial law until 1987. This turbulent history introduced a range of religions, from Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism, Chinese folk religions, and Christianity, which in turn have intermingled with aboriginal belief systems, myths, and legends. Nakamura points out that, “as with other East Asian countries, it is common to blend different religious practices in Taiwan. The spiritual world is very much part of life and has also been the source for creative inspiration [there].”4 This syncretism of belief systems, of integration rather than categorization, and its fluidity within everyday life, yields unexpected and refreshing aesthetic manifestations within the exhibition—at once sensual, contemplative, humorous, mystical, and wistful—with works that elude classification. Nakamura’s curatorial approach to Taiwan’s diversity and her focus on spiritual elements is shaped by an interest in process: “As an anthropologist, I am interested in artists and their practices, more than artworks themselves. I wanted to include the artists with skills, especially those who incorporate traditional techniques in making their work.”5

Entrance to (In)visible, UBC Museum of Anthropology. Photo: Kyla Bailey. Courtesy of Museum of Anthropology, UBC, Vancouver.

Left: Chiu Yu-Wen, Water Fairies Reproduction Project, 2004–15, paper and fabric. Photo: Fuyubi Nakamura. Courtesy of the artist. Right: Chiu Yu-Wen, Water Fairies Reproduction Project, 2004–15, paper and fabric. Photo: Joni Low. Courtesy of the artist.

100 Vol. 15 No. 3 Charwei Tsai, Sky Mantra, 2009, video, 30 mins., 54 secs. Photo: Fuyubi Nakamura. Courtesy of the artist.

Entering the exhibition, one is immediately enfolded within the soft, intricate walls of Chiu Yu-Wen’s Water Fairies Reproduction Project (2004–15), a white labyrinthine installation of thousands of paper cuttings that lead to other works in the exhibition. Described by Chiu Yu-Wen as a metaphor for re-entering the mother’s womb, Water Fairies subsumes the delicate nature of the single cutting into the strength of its whole. Individual paper cuts float and quiver as the viewer passes by, varying with one’s velocity of movement. Chiu Yu-Wen spent over ten years creating this work, which took her to Japan, Thailand, and Laos for research and ignited other collaborative projects in theatre set design, fashion, and contemporary dance.6 In the most effective sections of this massive piece, individual fairies perform as mysterious shadows clustered around glowing lights. Peering through various openings within this installation, we discover a video by Charwei Tsai, titled Sky Mantra (2009), of a woman writing on what appears to be the sky. She begins in the left-hand corner, scrawling black characters from memory onto a mirror that reflects the transient clouds and blue sky above her. As a video performance of the artist’s meditative process, this work captures her exploration of the Buddhist concept of emptiness and its inseparability from form, which moves beyond dualistic, rational, and modern thinking—and beyond the separateness of words themselves. It recalls for me the impermanence of the moment when the reading of a word connects with thought, and the fleeting image or memory it sparks.

Directly across from this work, Yuma Taru’s woven textile sculptures hang in mid-air, their dynamic forms curling like choreographed dancers, with vibrant colours catching the light like fabric tossed in the morning sun. Entitled Convolution of Life (2012–15), the works convey the importance of textile weaving within Ayatal culture, in which each human life is understood as an interwoven process continuing into the heavens, and where social values and activities such as art making reﬂect this. The circular shapes echo the forms that Ayatal women create when weaving cloth for everyday use; they also communicate a belief in the intersecting connections and relations between people. Yuma Taru, who is of mixed Chinese and Ayatal descent, has devoted the past twenty years to preserving

Vol. 15 No. 3 101 indigenous traditions; at her Lihan Weaving Studio in Xiangbi village, amid Yuma Taru, Convolution of Life, 2012–15, cotton, ramie, the mountains of Miaoli county, she trains young women in both dyeing silk, and metal wire. Photo: Fuyubi Nakamura. Courtesy of and weaving natural ﬁbres. There are strong matrilineal traditions within the artist. Ayatal weaving, in which complicated techniques and processes require precise arrangements of coloured threads to create patterns that vary across different sub-groups and regions.7 What is most striking about these works is how alive they feel, and the handmade process evident in the materials, such as the irregular beading and patterns that no machine could replicate. The (In)visible exhibition text draws a beautiful parallel between these forms, the circular dances in their tribal celebrations, and the metaphoric welcoming of intercultural conversations: “Like Ayatal weavings, each circular shape bears an opening to signify continuous receptivity and an invitation for someone on the edge to enter the gap.”8

The emphasis on ritual and repetition is a strong theme throughout these first works, from Charwei Tsai’s practice of working through philosophical concepts via the aesthetics of writing texts to the meditative process of Chiu Yu-Wen’s paper-cutting and Yuma Taru’s communal weaving. These works are traces of the act of a spiritual and meditative process, though in Charwei Tsai’s case, the artist is visible through her recorded performance. All works emit a gentle power, persistent yet without declaration or imposition. I find myself thinking of Taiwan’s recent historic election of its first female Prime Minister, Tsai Ing-wen, the strong matrilineal traditions within Taiwan’s aboriginal groups, and the qualities of leadership that can manifest and be honoured within these contexts.

102 Vol. 15 No. 3 Anli Genu, My Cross, 2009, Anli Genu’s mixed-media paintings present a more visibly syncretic oil and bamboo on canvas, 299 x 228 cm. Collection of approach to spirituality and cultural heritage in Taiwan. Entitled My Cross Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts. (2009), the series’ colourful sectioned patterns and ﬁgurative portraits are an unexpected take on a signiﬁer commonly associated with Judeo- Christian faiths. Block-like fragments of motifs from Indigenous weaving traditions, intersected by bamboo slats and vivid portraits, convey the aesthetics of his heritage and inter-faith training, assembling what Nakamura describes as “totems of Ayatal culture to produce emotionally charged pieces.”9 To see these patterns incorporated into contemporary art and circulated in exhibition contexts is certainly a symbolic act of cultural representation—and a powerful experience, especially for someone deeply connected to such cultural heritage and histories. For those encountering this anew, such as I, it allows for moments of learning and shifts in frameworks in how one perceives and understands the aesthetics and related histories of diverse cultural backgrounds.

Further within the exhibition, artists adopt the role of alternative storytellers, drawing from history, philosophy, and nature to demonstrate the pliability of narratives and to question the alleged truths delivered by visual representations, past and present. Tu Wei-Cheng’s Confucius Series (2000 and 2010) playfully mythologizes the ancient sage in a humorous and modern light, loosening the Confucian doctrines that have had a tremendous inﬂuence on education, family life and social structures in Chinese and other East Asian cultures.10 Intricately carved in artiﬁcial stone and touched in gold leaf, or treated with the illusion of cracks and patina reminiscent of ancient paintings, these works depict Confucius amid icons from popular culture, from Japanese anime to North American cartoons,

Vol. 15 No. 3 103 Left: Tu Wei-Cheng, Confucius Dancing Mambo, 2010, artiﬁcial stone, gold and silver paint, gold leaf, 90.5 x 73.5 cm. Courtesy of the artist. Right: Tu Wei-Cheng, Confucius Observing All Directions, 2010, artiﬁcial stone, 54 x 44 cm. Courtesy of the artist.

all subtly peering from around his robes. In other works, he shape-shifts into the form of a multi-limbed deity, hands ﬁlled with electronic gadgets among other recording devices such as pens and books. Tu Wei-Cheng’s choice of materials and effects clearly reference historical works, while the subject matter subverts the image’s inﬂuence, challenging the authority of these philosophies and opening things to new interpretations.

Walis Labai’s Invisible Project: Whispering with Spirit (2014) brings a more Walis Labai, Invisible Project: Whispering with Spirits, 2014, sombre tone to reinterpreting the past. In a slow and silent video, archival video. Courtesy of the artist. images and portraits of indigenous people from around the world are projected onto natural landscapes such as forests, cliffs, and waterfalls, fading in and out of visibility. Walis Labai, who is of mixed Chinese and Seediq ancestry, collected these images over a number of years to critique photography’s presentation of apparent truths and their role in the histories

104 Vol. 15 No. 3 of colonization. Utilizing digital technologies to blur the boundaries between virtual and the real, he mediates the gaze, challenging the ways indigenous people have often been cast as Other and questioning the veracity of the visual representations we are bombarded with in twenty- first-century culture. The blending of portrait with landscape highlights the deep connection of the Seediq people to the land; as the artist describes it, “We can echo the speech of nature. . . . In ancient Seediq creation legends, our ancestors were born from trees. We Seediq people have a strong attachment to nature and we know where we come from.”11 Reclaiming the digital tools of the dominant visual culture, which frequently supplant handmade and traditional arts, he articulates his perspective, a process that I read as activating agency through intimate reflection.12 Here, the theme of invisibility can be interpreted several ways, as the exhibition title (and its parenthetic intervention) suggests. On one hand, it references the mistaken colonial belief that indigenous cultures are dying or vanishing— which, as curator Candice Hopkins and many others have pointed out, has erroneously justified the collecting and preserving of indigenous cultural objects, in many cases disrupting their symbolic use in everyday cultural rituals.13 More positively, it can be read as marking the vanishing of cultural stereotypes that occur as greater awareness and understanding is reached, parallel with the emergent visibility of multiple perspectives and voices.

The most fascinating work, Li Jiun-Yang’s Miao (2003–13), unfolds near the end of the exhibition. Filling an entire room with hundreds of wood and bamboo carved puppets, formal wall-sized drawings, and reams of smaller ink drawings, installation simulates a multivalent spiritual temple, with references to the diverse cultural inﬂuences in Taiwan that move expressively in every direction. Miao—a term encompassing craft and inventiveness, magic and wonder, miracles, and creative ingenuity, is ignited here in full force. Rows of expertly carved, multicoloured heads lead to slender bamboo characters and intricate clothed puppets, with associations ranging from Paiwan carvings to temple gods, Hokkien puppetry, and Japanese anime. At the back of the room, stream-of-consciousness ink drawings—penned on magazine and book pages—hang from the ceiling, joined by red strings of fate. Their contents blend humans with animals and nature, suggesting a fantastical, boundless, and anarchic spiritual world that exists beyond organized religion, which the artist describes as his “rainbow labyrinth temple.” The artist’s statement, peppered with clues, extends his liberated perspective on a strange, curious, and joyful adventure of a life ﬁlled with spirits as he, the ingenious craftsman, carries on with his work:

I believe in spirits . . . how could this be a mere game of religion and culture? . . . The warriors beat their drums and gongs to exorcise the demons. Dong! Ding! Kong! Please bow—spirits and ghosts of the eight directions, four realms, and of very colour shall converge with people of all ages. Along will come the intellectuals, the nine eccentrics, the hermetic sages, the formless spirits, the golden child prodigies, the bejeweled ladies, the martial masters of the

Vol. 15 No. 3 105 mountains, the peculiar peach-blossom sorceresses, and the Li Jiun-Yang, Miao, 2003–13, mixed media. Photo: Fuyubi wild, sea-borne drunkards!14 Nakamura. Courtesy of the artist.

Li Jiun-Yang, a self-taught artist raised in a family of billboard painters, became versed in temple art, puppet carving, and theatre design at a young age. At a time when American culture was exerting its presence in Taiwan, he turned to vernacular folk traditions and local handmade arts. A creator with diverse talents who has exhibited internationally, he imaginatively melds popular culture, religious traditions, and vernacular practices, making them at once accessible and pleasurable and piquing endless curiosity. During a forum on religious diversity organized in conjunction with the exhibition, Dr. Josephine Chiu-Duke, Associate Professor in the Asian Studies department at UBC, made an intriguing remark about spirituality within contemporary Taiwanese culture, referring to the serenity temples embedded within the everyday along urban street corners. “The deities want you to be Li Jiun-Yang, Miao, 2003–13, mixed media. Photo: Joni Low. disturbed. These places are asking people to slow down, look inside.”15 Her Courtesy of the artist. comment ﬁt well with the destabilizing effects on well-worn mental paths that I see occurring in Li Jiun-Yang’s mischievous installation.

Li Jiun-Yang, Miao, 2003–13, mixed media. Photo: Joni Low. Courtesy of the artist.

As an introductory exhibition to the diverse forms of spirituality in contemporary Taiwanese art, which includes perspectives from Indigenous Taiwanese artists, (In)visible brings to our awareness the deeper histories of this island and the unanticipated outcomes of cultural and spiritual hybridity brought about by waves of colonization. The scholarship on this subject is evidently extensive, while not overwhelming or conspicuously overlaid within the exhibition. Its inclusion of modest didactic panels with artists’ statements adjacent to the works reveal a sensitivity to their perspectives and processes that allows their work to shine. While a further integration of Indigenous contemporary art practices within a cross- cultural and international context would be desirable, rather than remaining contained within the categories of ethnicity and race present in ethnographic museum frameworks, perhaps there are plans for this in the future.

106 Vol. 15 No. 3 Vol. 15 No. 3 107 As one of the ﬁrst exhibitions in Vancouver to focus on the topic of diverse spirituality and indigenous practices within contemporary Taiwanese art, (In)visible is situated within a larger program, “Spotlight Taiwan,” a four- year initiative at the Museum of Anthropology that focuses on Taiwan’s complex and multicultural identity. Funded by the Ministry of Culture, Republic of China (Taiwan), and Dr. Samuel Yin, these activities are part of yet a longer and recent trajectory of exhibitions since the 1990s, within Taiwan and internationally, that incorporate Indigenous Taiwanese art and the expression of these cultural identities.16 All of these activities are directly related to the lifting of martial law governance in 1987 and subsequent political and cultural liberalization. Since this time, aboriginal Taiwanese groups have sought a higher degree of political self-determination and recognition, establishing alliances to address land rights, economic hardship and discrimination, and implementing their histories within educational curricula. Politically, aboriginal voters, through a single non-transferable vote, elect six out of 113 seats in the Legislative Yuan. Therefore, democracy has played a signiﬁcant role in initiating more inclusive and discursive spaces within art, culture, politics, and human rights.17

In the context of the exhibition’s funding, I did wonder about the extent to which the histories of colonization and struggle were muted, or overlaid by other narratives, to provide a seamless experience of these spiritual themes and a celebration of Taiwan’s current democracy, which nonetheless deserves recognition. Though Nakamura included a comprehensive history of Taiwan in the exhibition, describing the waves of colonization and the discrimination, hardship and violence that occurred, this was curiously absent in the exhibition’s take-away booklet. The main introduction lacks the historical context present in other writing, painting a positive outlook on Taiwan’s current situation without acknowledging its conﬂicted histories. Knowing how creative and intellectual content can often face censorship or dilution under the pretence of reaching a general audience, I left with the concern that the exhibition funding sources could have possibly resulted in a less nuanced version of the research undertaken. Cultural institutions, as we know, are not exempt from the politics and tensions of deciding how stories are told.

(In)visible nonetheless addressed, very elegantly, how different aesthetic vocabularies are required to understand art from different cultures, beyond the established canons or criteria of Western art history. It brought to mind the Museum of Modern Art’s controversial 1984 exhibition “Primitivism” in 20th Century Art: Afﬁnity of the Tribal and Modern, curated by William Rubin, and its problematic approaches to utilizing third world art and artists as footnotes to assert the primacy of Western art history, without investigating the deeper histories of these formal cultures. The controversial debates that ensued led to the critique of larger art historical discourses and, as many point out, to the beginnings of deeper investigations of the

108 Vol. 15 No. 3 art and culture of contemporary indigenous, African, Indian, Asian, and Latin American art and ongoing stances against cultural imperialism in the politics of cultural representation.18 Prior to this, scholarship within the humanities—Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978) among many others—led to numerous postcolonial studies and to the deconstruction of Western- centric narratives in order to reassess history and better understand humanity across cultures. While it is encouraging to think of how far things have come since then, there is still much work to be done.

"Upside down" tree at UBC, Exiting the exhibition, we Vancouver. Photo: Joni Low. weaved through the darker chambers of the Museum, peering into glass display cases. Beau Dick showed us a salmon-skin dress made by the Nanai people in Siberia, Russia, in addition to the headdresses, wooden figures, and masks he had carved, which were all undated. He told us the story of Winalagalis, the supernatural warrior, whose dances are performed as part of the Kwakwaka’wakw potlatch ceremony—particularly, the story of the tuxw’id—females who dance under this influence, and the treasures they can unearth— causing her to “give birth to a frogs, conjure puppets to emerge from the ground, or cause crabs to scuttle sideways on the floor.” I was struck by the fantastical imagery, its deep symbolism, and its suggestion of transformation, musing that it allowed for realities other than what we have created through modernity or the re-entry of the sometimes irrational yet spiritual knowledge that modernity has often excluded. It reminded me of a tree we had encountered on our way to the exhibition, which Beau had also pointed out. Its roots pointed skyward, it was as if it had grown upside down so that we could see its origins. In a way, this is what the exhibition, and the many reconstructive historical practices taking place today, are asking us to do— to reflect on the past, to be open to the inversion of what we thought we knew, and to the symbolism around us—in its most unexpected and often spiritual forms – so that we can begin to see things differently, things both visible and invisible.

Vol. 15 No. 3 109 Notes

1. Lalakenis/All Directions: A Journey of Truth and Unity is an exhibition (January 16–April 17, 2016) about Beau Dick’s and others’ journey to Ottawa to challenge elected officials to attend to the relationship between the federal government and First Nations peoples through a traditional copper- breaking ceremony that marks a ruptured relationship in need of repair. For more information, see the exhibition description on the Belkin Gallery’s website: http://belkin.ubc.ca/current/lalakenis- exhibition/. 2. See “Museum of Anthropology,” http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/museum-of- anthropology/. 3. See “Musqueam,” http://www.musqueam.bc.ca/. 4. Fuyubi Nakamura, “Introduction,” in the exhibition booklet (In)visible: The Spiritual World of Taiwan Through Contemporary Art (Vancouver: Museum of Anthropology, 2016), 5. 5. From an e-mail interview with the author and Nakamura, March 12, 2016. 6. (In)visible, 10. 7. Yuh-Yao Wan, “The Development of Indigenous Art in Taiwan,” in Greg A. Hill and Candice Hopkins, eds., Sakahan: International Indigenous Art, exh. cat. (Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 2013), 98–106. Yu Yao-Wan is a professor at National Dong Hwa University in Taiwan. 8. (In)visible, 20. 9. Ibid., 6. Anli Genu is a Christian pastor, Atayal aboriginal, and artist who completed an MFA at the School of Visual Arts, New York (1992), and a Master of Divinity at Yu Shan Theological College (1997). 10. Works in the exhibition include the trio of paintings Confucius Military Training: Hear no Evil, Speak no Evil, See no Evil (2000), and the stone carvings Confucius Dancing Mambo (2010) and Confucius Observing all Directions (2010). 11. Walis Labai, quoted in Yuh-Yao Wan, “The Development of Indigenous Art in Taiwan,” in Sakahan, 100. 12. (In)visible, 18. 13. For further reading on the early conceptions of indigenous peoples and the subsequent treatment of artefacts in museums, see curator Candice Hopkins’s essay “On Other Pictures: Imperialism, Historical Amnesia and Mimesis,” in Sakahan, 30. 14. Li Jiun-Yang, quoted in (In)visible, 14. 15. Josephine Chiu-Duke’s presentation, “Pluralism in Taiwan,” at (In)visible Forum: Art and Religious Diversity in Taiwan, February 26, 2016. 16. For more information, see Yuh-Yao Wan, “The Development of Indigenous Art in Taiwan,” 100. Contemporary Aboriginal Art of Taiwan and Canada at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, 1999, would be relevant to explore further in relation to the site-specific contexts of (In)visible. 17. See “Taiwanese aborigines,” Nationmaster.com, Encyclopedia: http://www.statemaster.com/ encyclopedia/Taiwanese-aborigines/. 18. For the original press release for the 1984 exhibition “Primitivism” in 20th Century Art: Affinity of the Tribal and the Modern, see https://www.moma.org/momaorg/shared/pdfs/docs/press_archives/6081/ releases/MOMA_1984_0017_17.pdf?2010/.

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