The National Human Rights Museum has curated the "Monuments of Injustice: Design Competition on Visual Identity for Sites of Negative Heritage" exhibition at the Jing-Mei White Terror Memorial Park in New Taipei City to showcase winning works that seek to reconcile the nation's authoritarian past with the modern advancement of human rights.
Featuring 19 sets of artistic creations by 21 artists, the exhibition will run from Nov. 28, 2018 through April 30, 2019. Moreover, the competition winners will receive museum-subsidized trips respectively to Berlin, Germany; Gwangju, South Korea; and Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Kuo Po-yu (郭柏俞) and Yu Wen-ying (佘文瑛), creators of "Going Up," won the trip to Berlin; Tien Zong-yuan (田倧源), creator of "A New Message from the Underground," won the trip to Gwangju; and Lin Yi-chun (林怡君), creator of "Memorial Day of Basic Needs," won the trip to Phnom Penh.
Chen Jung-hong (陳俊宏), director of the National Human Rights Museum, noted that it was delightful to cooperate with curator Lai Yi-hsin (賴依欣) and the 21 artists. He explained that, through mutual collaboration, a knowledge bank was formed, and members of the group had extensive exchanges and studies on White Terror-related issues.
This led the artists to extend their comprehension and imagination regarding Taiwan's history, said Chen. Their artistic creations — with different approaches and inspirations from elements including spatial arrangement, the human body, text, audio, and commemorative value of featured landmarks and artifacts — have amplified the visual identity of sites of negative heritage and monuments of injustice, he added.
Tu Guei-mei (涂貴美), a political victim, praised the exhibition and the young artists. She said that she recognized the sincere efforts of the artists and was impressed by many of the submissions, including a concept piece constructed on a site where injustices happened during the White Terror and an installation using forbidden publications from the olden days of censorship.
Tu said she was particularly captivated by the innovative approaches undertook to initiate a dialogue with the sites of injustice, and how young artists have joined the effort to identify sites of negative heritage with a deeper comprehension of that segment of Taiwan history.
The museum looks forward to more civic dialogue regarding sites of injustice through exchanges with exhibition-goers. Visitors are encouraged to vote for their favorite submission, and those who cast their ballots can receive a map of White Terror historical sites from the visitor's service center of Jing-Mei White Terror Memorial Park.
‘Monuments of Injustice’
Date: Nov. 28, 2018 – April 30, 2019
Venue: National Human Rights Museum
Address: No. 131 Fuxing Road, Xindian District, New Taipei City, Taiwan (ROC)
Site: https://monumentsofinjustice.tw
Editor's Note: This exhibition was originally scheduled to end on March 31, but was subsequently extended to April 30 due to popular demand. The promotional materials including posters do not accurately reflect this change.