A symbolic “public burial” for the victims of COVID-19 is to be held at Taipei’s Liberty Square from tomorrow to Sept. 6 as a memorial to the dead and a protest against the government, the event’s organizers said yesterday.
A large tent installation would “give voice to the powerless, clear the names of the dead and seek the truth,” said Wuo Young-ie (吳永毅), an associate professor at Tainan National University of the Arts’ Graduate Institute of Documentary, who is leading the project.
The memorial is to consist of performances, artwork and nightly debates, Wuo told a news conference outside the Legislative Yuan’s Chun-hsien Building in Taipei.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
Pieces from award-winning architect Hsieh Ying-chun (謝英俊), video artist Chen Chieh-jen (陳界仁) and theater director Wang Mo-lin (王墨林) would be featured throughout the week, Wuo said.
Groups representing the least powerful of society would also be welcomed to advocate their causes, including striking members of the Miramar Golf Country Club union, people seeking to prevent the demolition of Taichung’s Liming Kindergarten and properties along a railway project in Tainan, Chinese spouses living in Taiwan and foreign students, he said.
Due to the “inability to freely discuss certain topics” online, psychiatrist Su Wei-shuo (蘇偉碩) and other outspoken critics would be holding nightly debates at the tent, Wuo added.
Su, who last week launched a petition to put emergency approval of the Medigen COVID-19 vaccine to a referendum vote, said that the names of the dead are to be displayed on the outside of the tent.
“In life it was too much to bear, and in death they can only be referred to in code” due to the stigma associated with contracting COVID-19 and the government’s “suppression and cold-blooded denial,” Su said.
When democracy pioneer Chiang Wei-shui (蔣渭水) died of typhoid in 1931, his supporters organized a “public burial” to protest the Japanese colonial government, he said.
The prohibition on political gatherings and government criticism at the time bear a “striking similarity to today,” Su said, adding that he hopes the artists leading this “public burial” 90 years later could give voice to the “grief, anger and helplessness of the dead.”
The title of the structure designed by Hsieh, Mass Tent (大眾帳), is meant to symbolize that all beings under its eaves are sheltered and included, and all viewpoints welcomed, Wuo said.
The tent is to be erected tomorrow morning as a public installation by participants, “unlike the techniques used during the pandemic, which were controlled by the black-box operations of experts and others,” he added.
Young people are afraid to speak out, fearing they would be attacked online, Wuo said, inviting everyone to come to the event as equals and to speak their mind.
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