The port city of Keelung is surrounded by vast stretches of rocky green cliffs and clear blue oceans with waves that lap dramatically, rocking the colorful sailboats flimsily docked at shore. The scent of fried shrimp and shucked oysters permeates the air, and by nightfall, the moon casts a luminescent glow upon the rickety seaside houses, making them appear like strange, willowy figures inhabiting the ocean.
With an increasing number of travelers flocking to Yehliu Geopark (野柳公園) to the west and the mountainous old village of Jiufen (九份) to the east, Keelung is often overlooked as merely a small fishing community situated between two major tourist attractions. But if you’re looking to find some serenity this summer, Keelung has much to offer.
Walking along the coast a couple of meters away from the National Museum of Marine Science and Technology (國立海洋科技博物館) by Haikeguan Train Station (海科館車站) you’ll notice a colorful doll perched atop a tree branch. It has no face. Rather, its head, like its torso and limbs, are made out of cut-up plastic, old fishing nets and other junk. Strolling further up the coast, you discover another doll sitting on a signboard. And one more on a wall by a temple. There’s even a whole group of them resting on the rail of a bridge.
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Photo: Dana Ter, Taipei Times
CONSTRUCTED PARADISE
The dolls are not coincidental. They were made by UK artist Sue Bamford and are part of an outdoor exhibition curated by Jane Ingram Allen in conjunction with the museum. This year, the first-ever International Environmental Art Exhibition was launched and nine artists from Taiwan and around the world were chosen to partake in a residency in Keelung. The only rule was that they had to use recycled materials to create on-site installations that blend with the natural scenery, especially the ocean, since the theme this year is Paradise: Sustainable Oceans. The exhibits are scattered around the coast, and while it’s possible to walk, the museum provides a free shuttle bus service.
Allen, who also curated the Chenglong Wetlands International Environmental Art Project (成龍溼地國際環境藝術計畫) in Yunlin County, says the Keelung project is two-pronged. Firstly, it is meant to raise environmental awareness. Secondly, the installations are meant to challenge popular misconceptions about the ocean being a dangerous place. Decades of martial law created a culture where the beach was associated with barbed wire and military drills, rather than fun family outings.
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Photo: Dana Ter, Taipei Times
“Oddly, for a place like Keelung which is surrounded by beaches, there’s a lot of disassociation with the sea,” Allen tells the Taipei Times.
Originally from Alabama, Allen came to Taiwan in 2004 on a Fulbright Scholarship to study hand papermaking. She fell in love with the art scene and the natural environment and was inspired to find a way to combine the two. She has spent the last decade doing residencies and creating and curating site-specific environmental art installations in Taiwan and elsewhere.
“The problem with art is that we can’t solve all the environmental problems,” Allen tells me at the museum, a vast cluster of low-rise, geometric buildings with floor-to-ceiling glass windows that allow visitors to peek out at the tall, shady trees nearby. “We can only inspire others to do so.”
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Photo: Dana Ter, Taipei Times
That being said, public participation is an important part of environmental art projects. Allen mentions that in Chenglong, it was easier to get the local community involved since the elementary school near where the exhibition took place has had a history of collaborating with artists. The museum tried to recruit local residents, but it was difficult because this was the exhibition’s first year. Nevertheless, even simple things like collecting shells from seafood restaurants to use in the art installations helped to spread word of the exhibition’s goals.
Surprisingly, the idea of combining art and nature is still relatively new. Allen says that in South Korea, for instance, artists have been putting up sculptures in natural environments, but not really using recycled, biodegradable materials, or emphasizing the holistic relationship between art and nature.
“Taiwan is the leader in Asia for this kind of art,” she says.
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Photo: Dana Ter, Taipei Times
‘HAPPY RUBBISH’
Like Bamford’s 100 dolls dispersed around the port, the other installations manage to be discreet too. Most are made from wood and bamboo and are only visible after walking pass them two or three times.
Hailing from Cornwall, a small fishing village in the UK’s southwest, Bamford has been interested in environmental art since she was young. It was during an artist residency in Egypt that she started working with crochet, creating colorful coral spun from fuzzy yarn. Later, she progressed to making bunnies from recycled clothes and arranged them in boxes so that when they overflowed, they resembled garbage spewing out of a trash can.
Photo: Dana Ter, Taipei Times
“But it’s happy rubbish,” she says, her upbeat personality matching her pink hair. “My work tries to be colorful but it still has a strong message — it lets people smile and want to join in, rather than making them feel guilty.”
Bamford’s installation, collectively titled Spokesmen for the Ocean, conveys a similar message. Although it’s fun to play “spot the dolls,” they also have an educational function.
“Life on earth began in the ocean and we are not keeping it alive,” Bamford says.
Another artist who’s keen on keeping the ocean alive is Taiwanese artist Chris Lee (李蕢至). An avid scuba diver and snorkeler, Lee cannot understand why Taiwanese fear the ocean.
“It’s weird — we live on an island,” he says.
Over the years, Lee has noticed the coral reefs slowly disappearing in the waters around Taiwan and his concern for their depletion was what drove him to create Exiled Reef. Fashioned from driftwood and nailed together with recycled chopsticks, the giant-sized monotone installation resembles a coral reef. It also doubles as seating for people to rest and gaze out at the ocean.
“It’s meant for people to sit down, open their minds and think deeply about the ocean,” Lee says.
The location of the installation is significant as well. The lush green park in which Exiled Reef stands used to be a garbage dump. So viewers are essentially sitting on top of a dump — yet another reminder of our responsibility to take care of the ocean.
LIFE CYCLE
Creating a pensive atmosphere while encouraging viewer participation is what many of the installations try to accomplish. Italian sculptor and sound artist Rudi Punzo’s Resounding Dome is a good example of this. Punzo’s “dome,” made out of bamboo, is perched atop a cliff peering down at the ocean. Inside are miniature stations where visitors can pull and tug on wooden handles, causing bicycle wheels to turn, metal pipes to creek and bamboo sticks to wobble, creating a noise that sounds like pebbles rolling back and forth on the shore.
Punzo’s choice of recycled bicycle parts is simple. “The bicycle,” he says, “is the first ecological machine that men invented.”
He sees the dome as a meditation room, a safe haven where people can listen to the sounds of the winds and tides. Yet, similar to the installations by Bamford and Lee, it’s also educational. Punzo uses solar and wind energy in his work and he wants his viewers to be more aware of the energy they consume — “to think twice before turning on the air-conditioning on a hot day for instance,” he says.
Black Kite Bench by Sarah Haviland is another piece that probes into the idea of life as being cyclical. Shuttling back and forth between the Hudson Valley and New York City for the last couple of years, Haviland says that her yearning for human interaction and culture, and her love for being in nature are in constant conflict.
This tension shows in her wire-mesh sculptures which are inspired by human-bird figures from myths and religions around the world. The sculptures, she says, are human responses to nature and closely resemble the form of the female body.
Black Kite Bench is a way to raise awareness of the black kite eagle, a bird species native to Keelung, which is in danger of extinction. The black kite eagle bears a striking resemblance to the American bald eagle which nearly went extinct 50 years ago because of destruction of their habitat and illegal shooting, but through the public’s efforts, were able to be saved. Likewise, if people were to channel their efforts into protecting the environment in Keelung, then the black kite eagle will be saved too.
Viewers are invited to sit on the bamboo sculpture — since it is also a bench — which has an encircling, nurturing feeling and is strategically positioned to look out at the ocean. Taking care of the ocean is integral to saving the black kite eagle, since it is part of their habitat.
“Focusing on the bird will help with bringing attention to the ocean — both go together,” Haviland says.
FISH OUT OF WATER
Also on display is Michael and Anna Rofka’s giant seashell house made out of bamboo (Michael is from Germany while Anna hails from Ukraine). Titled House of the Sea, visitors can walk into the seashell and imagine that they are creatures living in the ocean.
Fishing is another prevalent motif in the exhibition. Taiwanese artist Lo Yi-chun’s (羅懿君) Gift of Light, is a huge installation made with bamboo, recycled glass bottles and fishing nets, made to resemble a giant fisherman’s boat. The bottle pieces allude to animals that get caught in fishing nets. Overlooking docked fishermen’s boats, the installation also lights up at night with LED lights powered by solar panels.
Firman Djamil from Indonesia and Ashish Ghosh from India both draw upon the livelihood of fishermen who live out in the ocean for their installations. Djamil’s Living in Rompong made out of bamboo, sisal rope and shells, is a recreation of the floating houses of Indonesia’s fishermen, while Ghosh’s Dream Boat, constructed with bamboo, recycled wood, natural fiber rope and cloth with natural dyes, resembles fishermen’s boats found in the Bay of Bengal. The irony is that both their installations are nowhere near the ocean. Djamil’s is by Haikeguan station while Ghosh’s is along the highway.
Rain, shine, typhoons or otherwise, the exhibition is officially opened until Aug. 30. However, it may last longer, depending on whether or not the museum keeps the structures. Either way, the biodegradable materials will eventually go back into the earth, while recyclable items will be brought to a recycle center.
If you’re not too fond on sites that are filled with busloads of cackling tourists, you might want to head to Keelung this summer, and give Yehliu and Jiufen a miss — or at least stop in for an hour or two while driving elsewhere.
It’s too early to tell if the exhibition will have an impact on individuals or organizations to take positive change towards protecting the environment and therefore, the wildlife that inhabit the oceans and surrounding shores, but by virtue of its location and because of its participatory nature, the exhibition is still a solid first step in the right direction.
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