CHIN CHENG-TE, LEE CHIA-HUNG, LIN CHUAN-KAI, AND CHEN YI-CHUN

Making Friends/ Fire (2020), presented by Chin Cheng-Te, Lee Chia-Hung, Lin Chuan-Kai, and Chen Yi-Chun at Taipei Biennial 2020, revolves around the theme ‘Cold War experience in Shilin and Beitou.’ It comprises of three parts arranged in a pentagon to symbolise the five petals of the ‘plum blossom,’ which the KMT regime adopted as a spiritual symbol in the governance of Cold-War Taiwan. The first part is a stele called The Cold Plum Fort—A Cold War Monument in Taiwan. The second includes a set of rearranged files, documents, and objects pertaining to the KMT regime, which completes the first part in terms of how the KMT regime carried out spiritual and bodily surveillance to maintain the integrity of the ‘plum blossom.’ The third part, under the name Making Friends/ Fire, is an installation of five videos surrounding the previous two parts, which offers a people’s narrative in contrast to and in dialogue with the state narrative. Altogether, the three parts embody not only the thermal contrast between warmness and coldness, but also how Taiwanese people make a fire in the Cold War by making friends.

Ocula 2020