The Kaohsiung-based National Sun Yat-sen University (NSYSU) yesterday decided not to cancel a Sunflower movement photography exhibition, saying the situation was “a misunderstanding,” after students accused the school of attacking freedom of speech.
The student-organized exhibition, titled Rebellious Romance showcases the work of photographer Huang Chien-hsien (黃謙賢), whose work from the protest was published in an album entitled Free Taiwan Expo (三 一八暴民展).
The exhibition was scheduled to be held at the university library. It was canceled by NSYSU administrators on Friday last week.
Following a protest statement by the university’s student association, NSYSU officials yesterday retracted the cancelation of the exhibition, saying there had been “a misunderstanding.”
A post on the NSYSU Student Association Facebook page said that “high-level” administrators at the university’s library and information services office revoked a permit for students to use the library on grounds that they objected to the exhibition’s “politically colored” content.
Officials were said to have sent intermediaries to inform students of the change just hours after the organizers completed arranging the displays.
Event organizers complied with the order, but over the weekend displayed anti-censorship messages written on the back of the photographs in the library on Facebook, the student association said.
One said: “To kill you is to destroy your body; depriving you of the expression of your opinion is to destroy your spirit.”
Another said: “In NSYSU, we got shut up.”
A netizen broke the story on Professional Technology Temple, Taiwan’s largest online academic bulletin board, leading to condemnations of the university on social media.
In its statement, the student association cited the Council of Grand Justices’ Constitutional Interpretation No. 414, saying that the university violated students’ constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech and demanded that the university make a formal apology.
“The [university’s] actions are tantamount to a re-enactment of White Terror-era restrictions on speech and expression on campus, and have trampled constitutionally guaranteed freedoms,” the student association said, adding that the university had “made itself the worst example possible for an academic institution.”
Students plan to hold the exhibition by a statute of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) on campus in protest, the student association said.
The university said that it was “surprised” by the turn of events and that it would hold the exhibition as originally scheduled, adding that it would conduct a review of the procedures for approving student activities on the campus.
The exhibition is to be part of a month-long art event called “Art and Alienation at NSYSU” that is dedicated to “reflecting on individuality and the deconstruction of the social labeling of the self,” the student association said.
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