Wang Hong-kai, an artist from Yunlin County who has lived in the West, created Our Work March using audio recordings of Huwei Township’s sugar factory to record the work conditions there. She uses sound, space and time to create something extraordinary, describing local historical changes and social backgrounds, and giving voice to these memories from Taiwanese factories on international artistic platforms, representing Taiwan and Yunlin from different artistic viewpoints.
Wang, who says the sugar factory was part of her childhood, says she left Yunlin at the age of 15 to go to school in northern Taiwan. After graduating from college, she went to school and worked in New York. Her sense of home and Taiwanese identity, however, were stronger the farther she was from home. Returning to Huwei to do the recordings for Our Work March is perhaps a realization of the feelings she has toward the area. Through sound the piece shows the passion the workers have toward their work and how much they care about the area.
Retired workers from Huwei Sugar Factory and their families were invited to participate in Our Work March. Beginning with a workshop on sound, microphones were eventually given to them to record the sounds of the area where they once worked.
Photo courtesy of Wang Hong-kai
照片由王虹凱提供
Wang says Our Work March gets past the artist’s subjective account, and instead utilizes group participation on the part of the workers to explore the historical space of the factory from an aural perspective. During the process, she refrained from positing too many of her own viewpoints, and instead let the audience use their own perspectives as well as interacting with video clips to create something magical. The piece allows us to better understand the emotions of these nameless people who quietly go about their work.
Wang says Taiwan Sugar Corp is a century-old company in Taiwan, and this documentary looks back at the typical factory worker’s existence in Taiwan’s industrial era, allowing us to gain insight into how the average city dweller feels. More importantly, however, is that Wang’s return to the community where she was born makes her sense of home even stronger.
Wang took part in the Venice Biennale in 2011, and has cooperated with exhibition organizers in the US, Europe and Asia. She has had solo exhibitions in Taipei, Copenhagen, and Luxembourg, and taken part in joint exhibitions in Japan, Denmark, the US, South Korea, Spain, Canada and Italy. The Yunlin County Government has invited her to return to Yunlin this year to hold her own exhibition there.
Photo: Lin Kuo-hsien, Liberty Times
照片: 自由時報記者林國賢
(Liberty Times, Translated by Kyle Jeffcoat)
旅居歐美的雲林縣籍藝術家王虹凱製作「咱的工作進行曲」,用聲音記錄虎尾糖廠勞工工作情況,透過聲音、空間與時間碰撞擦出火花,勾勒台灣在地的歷史轉變與社會背景,將屬於台灣工廠記憶,於國際的藝術平台「發聲」,用不同的藝術角度呈現台灣、呈現雲林。
本身是糖廠子弟的王虹凱說,她十五歲離開雲林北上求學,大學畢業後又到美國紐約求學、工作,儘管如此,她對「家」的感覺,及台灣的認同感,反而因為距離愈遠愈濃厚,回到虎尾糖廠進行「咱的工作進行曲」錄製,也許就是實踐自己對這塊土地的情感,透過聲音,展現勞工對工作熱忱與土地的關懷。
「咱的工作進行曲」是邀請虎尾糖廠的退休員工與家屬,從聲音工作坊開始引導,最後把麥克風交到他們手上,錄製他們昔日工作環境的聲音。
王虹凱表示,咱的工作進行曲打破藝術家主觀記錄,而由工人們集體參與的方式,從聲音的角度探索工廠的歷史空間,整個過程沒有加入太多自己的觀點,由觀眾用自己的角度與影片進行互動,擦撞更多的火花,了解這群默默堅守自己工作崗位小人物的情感。
她說,台糖是台灣百年公司,這支紀錄片回顧台灣工業時代典型的工廠勞動形態,體驗市井小民的生活感覺,更重要的是,回到自己出生成長的社區,家的情感更濃厚。
王虹凱曾於二○一一年參加威尼斯雙年展,更與歐美及亞洲策展人合作,在台北、哥本哈根及盧森堡舉行個展,也在日本、丹麥、美國、南韓、西班牙、加拿大和義大利參加聯展,雲林縣府文化處邀請她今年回雲林開展。
(自由時報記者林國賢)
Taiwanese cuisine boasts a rich culture of thick soups, with various options available at street vendors or high-end restaurants. In English, this style of dish is typically called “thick soup.” Western cuisine typically uses flour, cream, or mashed vegetables to create a creamy consistency, while in Taiwan, thick soups are made by simply incorporating food starch into the soup and creating a smooth and silky texture. Tutuo fish in thick soup is such a soup with fried tutuo fish chunks, shiitake mushrooms, bamboo shoots, and wood ears. 台灣羹品飲食文化豐富,無論是巷口小店或是高檔餐廳,都有提供羹料理。羹在英文稱作「濃湯」,西式濃湯是以麵粉、鮮奶油、蔬菜泥等達到濃稠的口感,台灣的羹湯用太白粉即能做出濃稠絲滑的湯頭。土魠魚羹就是在勾芡的羹湯中加入炸土魠魚塊、香菇、竹筍、木耳等食材的料理。 boast (v.) 擁有(令人驕傲的事物) consistency (n.) 濃稠度 chunk (n.) 厚塊,大塊 wood ear (n. ph.) 木耳 The star of this
Huge stretches of coral reef around the world are turning a ghostly white this year amid record warm ocean temperatures. On April 15, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed the world’s fourth mass global bleaching event is underway — with serious consequences for marine life and for the people and economies that rely on reefs. WHAT ARE CORALS? Corals are invertebrates that live in colonies. Their calcium carbonate secretions form hard and protective scaffolding that serves as a home to many colorful species of single-celled algae. The two organisms have evolved over millennia to work together, with corals providing shelter to algae,
A: So who were Hollywood’s highest-paid stars of 2023? B: No. 5 to No. 2 were: Matt Damon with US$43 million, Ryan Gosling with US$43 million, Tom Cruise with US$45 million, and Margot Robbie with US$59 million. A: Didn’t Tom Cruise top the list? B: Nope, Adam Sandler was No.1, having made US$73 million, which is about NT$2.34 billion. A: Wow, maybe I should change my career to acting. A: 好萊塢去年的片酬排行榜前幾名是誰? B: 第5到2名是︰麥特戴蒙、4300萬美元,雷恩葛斯林、4300萬美元,湯姆克魯斯、4500萬美元,瑪格羅比、5900萬美元。 A: 冠軍竟然不是阿湯哥? B: 是亞當山德勒、片酬7300萬美元,大約23.4億台幣! A: 天啊或許我也該轉行當演員啦。 (By Eddy Chang, Taipei Times/台北時報張聖恩)
A symbol of purity and cleanliness, the color white is the standard color for coats worn by doctors. While this has been the case for well over 100 years, it hasn’t always been so. In fact, before the late 19th century, doctors wore formal black attire, which was similar to that worn by clergymen. Black was chosen for practical reasons—it hid stains from medical procedures and presented a sense of seriousness. The major reason for the color change of the doctor’s coat was to distinguish qualified, professional doctors from those with little or no medical training. Since medical science