The furniture is a mixture of cheap wooden benches and massive chairs hewn from single chunks of wood. A fire burns in an overturned oil barrel that has been cut in half. Millet wine is ladled from a jar into paper cups using a segment of bamboo. Siki (希巨.蘇飛), a sculptor from Taiwan's Amis Aborigines, his broad features and long hair highlighted by the fire, sings a sorrowful tune in a bold baritone.
The gathering in the compound of the Taiwan Aboriginal Modern Art Center (台灣原住民當代藝術中心) in Taitung (台東) followed a day of visits to the studios of local artists by a group of media and visiting arts and craft workers from around Taiwan. The Aborigine artists, widely dispersed and only just beginning to organize, had come together to discuss the role of Aborigine art in Taiwan and Aborigines' tenuous control over their works in an art world dominated by Han Chinese culture and the tourism industry.
Some argued over the difficulty of making a living from their work, while others feared that compromise with the commercial art market endangered their unique cultural heritage.
The Taiwan Aboriginal Modern Art Center, established by the Bunnun Cultural Foundation (布農文化基金會), seeks to combine the roles of a community center for local artists, a distribution center for their art and a resort hotel to bring visitors to the area and allow them to gain familiarity with Aboriginal art. The center's multiple functions seem to embody the tensions between creativity and the commercial imperative over which the artists wrangled at the three-day meeting.
As a place to gather and talk, Siki said the center had value, but primarily he drew inspiration from the festivals and stories told by the old men of his tribe. An independent spirit, he has little time for overtly commercial considerations.
An undefined threat
For Lahatze (季.拉黑子) -- a highly successful Amis Aboriginal sculptor, singer and poet -- the threat to Aboriginal art lies in the undermining of Aborigines' self-esteem and commitment to their art. "We cannot allow the government or scholars to tell us what it is to be Aboriginal, or what constitutes being Amis," he said in an impassioned plea to fellow artists, asking that they "take a stand."
"We aren't insistent enough over our own standards," Lahatze said. "We are afraid."
Speaking in reference to government subsidies for Aboriginal art -- and much money has been spent, though its beneficiaries are rarely Aborigines -- Lahatze said: "If you are really working for your culture and your people, then the question of subsidies does not really come into the issue." In the bright light of the Taitung sun, this seemed a hopelessly romantic notion for a people whose culture is threatened by the overwhelming tide of modern Chinese culture.
Lahatze, however, has a reputation and recognition that allow him to speak in such bold terms. Other artists rarely have such freedom. "We have to eat," was a phrase often repeated among the artists. For most, succumbing to market forces is an inevitable hurdle to reaching a larger market.
The commercial imperative
A Paiwan potter known by his nickname Ah Liang (
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