Ocean Currents, Islands and the South: The Conception of the Pan-Austro-Nesian Arts Festival
Interview with KMFA Director Yulin Lee (KMFA Director and Lead Curator of the 2021 Pan-Austro-Nesian Arts Festival)
Written by Lily Hsu
Translated by Serena Lin
The permanent currents of the ocean are, in a way, the most majestic of her phenomena. Reflecting upon them our minds are at once taken out from the earth so that we can regard, as from another planet, the spinning of the globe, the winds that deeply trouble its surface or gently encompass it, and the influence of the sun and the moon. For all these cosmic forces are closely linked with the great currents of the ocean, earning for them the adjective I like best of all those applied to them – the planetary currents.
-Rachel Carson (an excerpt from The Sea Around Us)
Western modern civilization is undoubtedly built to the human scale. Things are measured against man’s scale such as navigational indicators, or routes in urban streets, and also adjust them based on man’s goals. However, long before modern technology and civilization brought light to the world, greater forces and pulsation existed in all life on earth, including the ocean, tides, storms, constellations, or even every single plant or creature in nature. They might not understand the planet in which they live, but they were able to connect instinctively with the true nature of life, and live in harmony with surrounding organisms and non-organisms. We can even assume that, during that time, nature and people, and even between people, shared a closer and richer bond than the one we have today.
The ‘planetary currents’ elaborated by Rachel Carson–the eternal ocean currents that connect people of different islands, eras, and identities still carry inspiring beauty and strength half a century later. However, for many of us who grew self-centered and accustomed to the benefits of urban life and modern industries, we might have long forgotten the sense of modesty and the throbbing pulse of life. In fact, the planet’s history, its ebbs and flows, that traces back to ancient times far exceeds the span of time in human history.
As an island country. Taiwan enjoys warm ocean currents year-round. However, maybe because of our complicated histories or Han Chinese-centered mindset, it has not been easy for us in Taiwan to embrace an inclusive, oceanic perspective. We have fallen into the habit of regarding the west as more progressive, and thus neglected the collection and passing down of our island’s memories. Yet as we now confront directly the challenges of 2020, it is ever more urgent that we identify our own position amidst the tides of time and that we explore new ways to co-exist with our planet. This is what inspired KMFA Director Yulin Lee to propose the concept of the Pan-Austro-Nesian Arts Festival.
How would you reflect upon all the challenges that have taken
place in 2020?
Before this year, probably nobody could have imagined what would have happened in 2020, all the crises and calamities. This also makes us wonder, how would people of future generations look back to our times?
Because of the COVID-19 outbreak, we have seen a drastic turning point in the developments of Modernism and its associated capitalistic modern industrialization that once have blatantly declared their self-victory. The novel coronavirus spread vastly across the globe through frequent international traffic and led to mass population isolation or quarantine, which is unprecedented. As we stand at this crossroad in history, we cannot but ask: How did we come to all of this? There are a plethora of answers to this question, but to some extent, we are starting to realize a stalemate in our global development centered western Modernism. This realization also solidifies our belief in the significance of the Pan-Austro-Nesian Arts Festival that will soon be launched by the KMFA.
What is the significance of these challenges that occurred in 2020?
Examples of how diseases caused retrogression in human civilization are not scarce. This can be applied to the Black Death, the 1918 Spanish flu during World War I, or even how the Europeans brought diseases to the New World and wiped out so many indigenous Americans. Tiny germs and viruses often creep into the crevices of human history, exposing the fundamental problems of social institutions or structures. For example, in the historical incident of how the Europeans brought infectious diseases to native Americans, we witnessed the tremendous impacts of inter-continental mobility and colonialism. The Age of Discovery created a new surge in colonization, which then led to transnational movements and economic exploitation. These are all watershed moments that transformed the modern world we live in now. I believe the year 2020 is another turning point for us to rethink our world and our relationship with her.
The issue of environmental conservation has always been dear to my heart. On top of the COVID-19 outbreak, we have also witnessed in 2020 the Australia bushfire crisis, as well as forest fires in the United States and in Brazil. While the tension still looms in the Middle East the explosion of ammonium nitrate at the Lebanese capital of Beirut shocked the world. There have also been a number of oil spills from large vessels, which could be traced back to the global trade regime and the movements of goods. While all these devastating events occurred one after another, scientists have also been warning against rising temperatures that are causing unprecedented ice-melting in the Arctic and Antarctica. Ironically, as humans have been forced to curtail economic activities and international travels in response to the pandemic, we have seen the positive impact of the environment in a very short time, including the decline in pollution and heat emission as well as freeing up more space for wild animals to thrive. The pandemic is as if a warning from the earth, and a calling for self-healing.
Experts from many fields have pointed out that we are no longer capable nor should we return to the “old normal”. As the pandemic has lasted for a year without traces of ending. I really think the greatest and inescapable responsibility of our generation is to think about new social regulations and environmental ethics, a “new normal” that allows us to work and live harmoniously with the creatures in the universe. In the society in which we live, we only have a few decades or so to correct our own mistakes and seek better ways to co-exist with the planet and other living beings on this planet.
How did you first conceive of the Pan-Austro-Nesian Arts Festival? How is it related to the issues you’ve mentioned earlier?
When I became the director in 2016, I noticed that as early as 2000 the KMFA had spearheaded research and curatorial efforts in the field of contemporary Austronesian art, leading a pioneering effort among public art museums in Taiwan. Through artist-in-residence programs and international exhibitions, we have collaborated with many indigenous artists who now enjoy great artistic achievements, and thus accumulated rich research materials in this area.
Yet in the previous framework, we looked across different Austronesian-speaking peoples based on the language grouping, attempting to explore the possibilities of connecting contemporary Austronesian artists with the museum. Such cooperation is extremely valuable both to KMFA and to the development of Taiwan’s contemporary indigenous art. In particular, since KMFA is one of the three early public art museums in Taiwan which is located in the island’s south, we make it our core goal of KMFA to strive for artistic expression that takes a perspective from the South, instead of from the capital as the center. The KMFA has accumulated over a decade of expertise in promoting contemporary Austronesian arts, while the public has also broadened their understanding and has shown increasing interests in the richness of contemporary indigenous arts in Taiwan. We thus have to take a step forward and seek new possibilities.
The concept of Pan-Austro-Nesian(PAN) is thus prompted within this thinking. In short, the concept of PAN is to loosen from the current set Austronesian framework of language and ethnicity. We all know how widely the Austronesian peoples spread out, from Taiwan the northernmost, New Zealand the southernmost, Africa the westernmost to Easter Island of South America the easternmost. If viewed from this angle, the ‘Austronesian’ concept might not include the indigenous peoples of Southeast Asia or Australia. However, if we take the perspectives of colonialism or contemporary globalization, different indigenous communities from around the world, and even including the ‘southern, island” political entities in comparison to the ‘northern, continental” political powers, all share similar dilemmas concerning their own economic, political, or cultural sovereignties.
To realize greater possibilities for dialogues, we have pursued the strategy to move from local to global in recent years by leveraging the museum’s long-built foundation in Austronesian arts. We aspire to contribute to the thriving “Global South” discourses. It is with this idea that I proposed the Pan-Austro-Nesian Arts Festival as a new potential platform under the larger scope of “South Plus” as the KMFAS new position. It is my intent to re-position/ re-brand our museum from its former mission in nurturing artists from the south (of Taiwan) to connecting the museum’s geo-political condition of the south with “Global South ” discourses.
Could you further elaborate on the core concept of Pan-Austro-
Nesian?
As above-mentioned, we have proposed “South Plus” as the new endeavor of the KMFA, when the museum faced a major administrative reform in 2017. The philosophical ideas behind the “South Plus” are fundamentally “post-modern”, that celebrate historical pluralism, namely the “South Plus.” This is related to my initial thoughts about the Pan-Austro-Nesian Arts Festival, which is to break loose any culturally defined framework, and to allow utmost multilateral cultural discourse.
The key concept of the “Pan-Austro-Nesian arts festival” could be summarized in the three following aspects by looking into the three root words:
- Pan( )- fluidity and non-rigid territorial concept and expansive, all-inclusive visions that transcend boundaries.
- Austro( 5)- plural, non-center-constrained perspectives from the South, opposite to the north-centered mainstream discourse.
- Nesian( )represents multilateral oceanic connections.
Compared to mainstream cultures of modernism, the concepts of “Austro” and “Nesian” enjoy relative “openness,” conveying fluidity and dissociation. Also, referring to the “Pan” concept, we hope to create a common ground through contemporary art, where issues are shared in a global cultural context and where communication transcends blood ties, languages, ethnic groups and national boundaries.
Labay Eyong, My Traditional Costumes Are Not Traditional-Seediq Bale? 2012, Photograph, Fine Art, Baryta, 25.4 x 38.1 cm
In other words, Pan-Austro-Nesian embodies broader perspectives and possibilities. It departs from solely focusing on indigenous cultures and also challenges the public to become more flexible in interpreting the world from perspectives other than the dominant western narrative. The exhibition and viewer experience are designed to initiate further thoughts on cultural accessibility. What we care about is how contemporary ideas may mingle and intersect with memories, beliefs and traditions of the local land, including the use of the ocean as a metaphor to create linkages and foster communications. Taking a southern perspective that reflects upon linearity and centralization in the progressive history, we attempt to resist the paradigms dominated by modern consumption and industrial civilization. Meanwhile, we pay close attention to the encounters, contacts and conflicts of different scenarios and possibilities introduced by the flowing of the ocean, as well as explore the hidden exchanges of pluralistic cultures, in the past history. In the end, with the first “Pan-Austro-Nesian Arts Festival” we hope to, find new route that may lead us into a future, against the present consumerist society.
Thus, we will focus on three main themes. The first theme, “From Known to Unknown,” uses artistic creation as a medium to explore how people define their own world view through interpersonal contacts, exchanges and conflicts. Here, we emphasize each individual’s definition of his/her own environment, as well as cultural accumulation, instead of the dominant forms of “measurement or overwriting.” In the “Dark lsland” theme, we touch upon the dark colonial past of the Pacific region, looking into how artists understand and comb through the past histories, and even mend memories with the present reality. Finally. The “Circle of Life” theme proposes new possibilities for mankind and nature, as well as with mankind, to reconstruct their relations.
Could you share with the readers about the role that the Pan-Austro-Nesian Art Festival plays in KMFA’s transformation into a non-departmental public body?
Since I became Director and led the KMFA in transforming into an administrative corporation, we have steadily brought in excellent international exhibitions to Taiwan through co-branding strategies. These collaborations were intentionally built to reposition the KMFA’s international image, so that our visibility and significance can be heightened as we undertake new transitions, while also demonstrating to the public how we aspire to grow both locally and internationally.
The themes of our international exhibitions also align with KMFA’s long-term thinking. From the Nude: Masterpieces from Tate in 2018 to SUNSHOWER: Contemporary Art from Southeast Asia 1980s to Now and the TATTOO exhibitions in 2019, the KMFA respectively collaborated with the Tate Museum in London, the Mori Museum in Tokyo, and the Musée du quai Branly in Paris to carefully craft these parallel perspectives of history that transcend different cultures and to turn KMFA into an art museum with pluralistic viewpoints of history. Based on our “South Plus” strategy, we connect with international exhibitions like SUNSHOWER and TATTOO to expand our achievements rooted in Austronesian/indigenous art and to respond to the shifting landscape of global contemporary art.
In 2017, the Still Waters Run Deep exhibition was the grand opening that marked the KMFAS first spatial re-configuration, using the Love River basin as a metaphor to evoke a poetic sense and connect the museum to the city. In 2019, in celebrating the 25th anniversary of the KMFA, we launched unprecedented permanent collection gallery entitled South Plus: Constructing Historical Pluralism from the KMFA Collection, which highlighted our local collections and our role in connecting the city and its people.
And now in 2021, the Pan-Austro-Nesian Arts Festival signifies our new commitment to bring together what we have achieved so far since our administrative reform. We strive to construct a cultural brand that belongs uniquely to the city of Kaohsiung and, through fluid interactions and open-minded dialogues, to bring forth pluralistic communication.
Furthermore, extending from the previous experience collaborating with international museum partners, Pan-Austro-Nesian Arts Festival also endeavors at starting a different way of curating. Unlike the more common practice of commissioning guest curator/s from outside for international exhibition of this intent, we try to organize this first arts festival with our own inhouse curators and researchers, together with international curatorial expertise, respectively from the Queensland Art Gallery in Australia Gallery and the Pataka + Museum in New Zealand. With this effort, I am also hoping to further integrate and refresh the curatorial expertise from different generations who are now working together for this 26-year-old institution.
