Group exhibition, Postcard-installation with audio, C-Lab Taipei
An Orchid is not just a flower but an accumulation of layers of claims, projections and violence within and through time. Defined by a name, categorization, and stories about heroes and hunters it becomes a symbol for things it has not given its consent to. The logic of name-giving as an act of claiming not only unfolds in regard to objects and plants but also in regard to geographical territories and persons, where forceful assimilation, dominion and the erasure of intrinsic identity are imposed. “What’s in my Name?” looks at the process of how the Orchid was named, classified and categorized. It connects this investigation to the circumstance that Pongso No Tao, translated into the island of the people, was renamed as Lanyu / Orchid Island. Therefore the Orchid transforms into the symbol of an island, discussing interviewing stories of violence and demystifying the romantic notion of landscapes. The careful dissection of the process of naming within this work deals with narrations which try to stabilize and protect implemented systems of power and the space where logics of protection unfold.
The installation contained two components: a postcard stand with postcards, and an audio piece playing a collage of interviewed voices talking about the flower, the island and the naming of both. The postcard stand as the visual element is symbolic of an outside view, a fragmented tourist gaze, while the audiopiece through its raw conversational character gives an inside glimpse into the complex Taiwanese identity and voices on the island. Conceived by Lucia Salomé Gränicher, Aparupa Saha, Anh Phuong and Larissa Platz for the Exhibition “Protect exchange” at C-Lab in Taipei, Taiwan.
Collaborators
CHANG Ting Chen
LIN Yatin
CHAO Schuzä
HSIEH Yi Hua
CHANG I-Wen
Si Pehbowen
CHOU Chia Hui (syaman-walamen)