Joshua Tree Exhibition

March 2025

Joshua Tree Highlands Residency gallery, Joshua Tree, California, USA.

This new work is a yet incomplete installation piece that I commenced during my time here at the Joshua Tree Highlands Artist Residency. 

Since 2023, I have been researching on the Taiwanese Canadian and American diaspora impacted by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Taiwan.  I have family members who were persecuted and executed by the previous Taiwan martial law regime. The work is the result of my ongoing research on Taiwanese diaspora members who are or were active in the human rights movement, both domestically and abroad.  The work illustrates the collective memories of Taiwanese living abroad during the White Terror.

Taiwan was under martial law between 1949 and 1992 under the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuo Min Tang/KMT), which oppressed and executed thousands of Taiwanese people during this period, known as the “White Terror.” The population nicknamed these prosecutions, “Thought Crimes.” Taiwan’s transition to democracy largely began in 1992, with the first direct presidential election in 1996. In 2016, the newly elected president, Tsai Ing-wen, created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to document, preserve, and educate the public on martial-law-era atrocities. The commission later developed into the Transitional Justice Commission, tasked with redressing crimes against political activists, removing colonial statues/symbols, and transforming detention prisons into museums.

The installation piece represents a traditional Taiwanese household with a gate, wall, and home. Every element is fabricated with paper fiber made from Taiwanese and Californian native plant materials to highlight the dual citizenship identity. The homes are selected based on family members who were victims of the White Terror era — abandoned, then later returned to the family.

The installation work reflects the collective memories of a village — a village damaged by government oppression, leaving the residents with intergenerational trauma and bitterness. These memories exist solely within the people, and their stories serve as a healing bond in the village’s reconstruction. Through my interviews with them, I am rebuilding the village on paper. As the viewer walks through the installation, their movement breathes life into the flowing paper. The village lives again, briefly, in the viewer’s mind.

Each piece is hung with fishing strings and wooden dowel supports. Backlighting highlights the delicacy of the paper.  The pieces are created by etching images onto copper plates and printing on gampi paper using the techniques of aquatint and chine-collé. Once the print is dried, I cut out the image and couch it onto the paper fiber through papermaking. The pulp is a blend of yucca, gampi, and Abacá palm — indigenous plants to this local region and Taiwan.