“During my residency in Taipei, I have been looking for archives and references on the connection of Indonesia and Taiwan, both historically and contemporary. This search had brought me to museums and libraries. I’ve been flipping through books about the Dutch and Japan colonial regime in Taiwan while tried to compare it with the colonial time of Indonesia. Though the archives and references on Taiwan-Indonesia connection are not only stored in library and museum. The narrations of the two regions’ relation are embedded, yet also fragmented, in the city landscape and its inhabitants. In this regard, I have developed interest on the Taipei’s New Park (or what’s known now as ‘228 Memorial Park’) because of its historical and political significance which spans through different colonial regimes in Taiwan up until now.”

“The park was the location for Taiwan Expo, a colonial exhibition and held by Japan colonial government in 1935, and now it is the place protest for indigenous group to demand their land rights, a cruising area, and site for other forms of congregations which are benefiting from its location in the city center yet open for public usage with certain boundaries. Based on my research, I’m creating an audio guide of the New Park/228 Memorial Park to unravel the layers of narrations upon the public space with three voices of narrators; a student, worker, and visitor. These narrators represent various subjects which I had encountered, in person and through text, during my stay in Taiwan. It is also the overlook that positions in the discourse of citizenship, forms of the public, and historiography. A migrant worker who thinks constantly about home, a foreign student who doesn’t feel like she belong anywhere, an indigenous community member who was forced to travel to see the light of civilization in the city. Their biographies are intersecting in place yet apart in time. Through these narrators and the audio guide on the New Park/228 Memorial Park, I would like to propose a way of imagining worldview from listening to personal narratives of the displaced.” (Syafiatudina)

SPEAKER

Syafiatudina(b. 1988) is a writer, curator and member of KUNCI Cultural Studies Center, in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. She’s been involved with the institution since 2009. Up until now, she’s responsible for several key projects in community history and collaborative research projects which had produced exhibition, symposium, and radio programs. She’s been writing about her curatorial practice as well as other artist’s works in art publications and catalogues. Her main interest is on the role of art as part of critical knowledge production which shapes political subject.

No Man’s Land Residency & Nusantara Archive project (The 1st Year): http://www.facebook.com/NusantaraArchive/
Organizer: No Man’s Land; Digital Art Foundation
Associate Organizer: ET@T, Open-Contemporary Art Center
Observation Team: Chen Hsiang-wen, Ho Yu Kuen, Lai Ying-tai (supported by National Culture and Arts Foundation; specially thanks to Chen Fei-hao, Nicole Lai Yi-hsin, & City Square Taiwan)