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`A cockroach struts by the wall; pay attention to suspicious people'

By Michael Kearney
STAFF REPORTER, KINMEN
Thursday, Oct 25, 2007, Page 15

Installations from the Kinmen Bunker Art Festival. The works make use of scrap metal taken from shells that were dropped on the island. Photo: Michael Kearney, Taipei Times

Passers-by in Changliao (長寮), a town in Kinmen not big enough to be found on most maps of the island, might be surprised to see a series of sculptures and installation art sitting in the middle of a sorghum field. The sculptures are part of an exhibition being held until Oct. 31 titled Kinmen Bunker Art Festival (金門碉堡藝術節).

"Kinmen has three or four thousand bunkers. Our goal was to use local characteristics to create an art exhibition," said Zhou Xiang-ming (周祥敏), head of the Kinmen County Cultural Affairs Bureau Art Department.

The bunkers, weather-beaten to the same brown as the surrounding fields, appear to be as much a part of Kinmen's natural environment as the island's trees. By adding objects such as Chinese style roofs and infusing them into the bunkers, the artists explore the boundaries between nature and man-made objects.

Chang Yongho (張永和), head of the Architecture Center at Peking University (北京大學), cut open a bunker for his piece, One Divided by Two (一分為二). By doing so Chang exposes the inner space of the bunker, which he says transforms the defunct, stark shell into "a conceptual space that embodies the traditional Chinese [concepts of] yin (陰) and yang (陽)."

Installations from the Kinmen Bunker Art Festival. The works make use of scrap metal taken from shells that were dropped on the island. Photo: Michael Kearney, Taipei Times

The Maestro Wu (金合利鋼刀) knife company and artist Cai Xian-rui (蔡賢瑞) used concrete, steel, wood and other materials to create a piece that shows workers making knives. From 1950 to 1970, close to a million artillery shells were dropped on Kinmen, leaving behind a large amount of metal detritus. Hong Xiu-nuan (洪秀暖), head manager of the Maestro Wu, said the main point of the exhibit "was to show that artillery shells were used to make knives and that these knives are a Kinmen specialty."

Installations from the Kinmen Bunker Art Festival. The works make use of scrap metal taken from shells that were dropped on the island. Photo: Michael Kearney, Taipei Times

Some of the works highlight the horrors of war. Wu Hui-min's (吳惠民) Blood-Stained Demeanor (血染的風采) is a structure that looks like a line of blood-covered human forms and is surrounded by signs that read "Mine Field."

Wu, who is a pottery artist, said: "My inspiration came from the anti-landing devices I've seen my whole life, which are placed in the ocean to prevent enemy rafts from landing."

Another addition to the installation is a series of poems written by four poets. Bai Ling (白靈), provides a number of clever and often lighthearted poems, with verses such as, "Which region is your body's mine push-button? Why don't you press here and there to see?" Soldiers' mottos and humorous phrases have also been included, such as: "Close your fly; keep careful watch over water and electricity," and "A cockroach struts by the wall; pay attention to suspicious people."

Apart from the robot-like knife craftsmen and the abstract structure of Blood-Stained Demeanor, the installation is devoid of images of people. The effect conveys a message about the impact cross-strait conflict would have on the island.
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