2014年12月12日 星期五

【已發表】內部的亞洲

Writer's note: 本文為2013年10月4日至12月15日間於北藝大關渡美術館展出的「亞洲巡弋」(Asia Cruise)其所屬論壇所發表的文章。而全文中英版本亦於該展覽畫冊上發表。

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內部的亞洲
Internal Asia

高森信男
Nobuo TAKAMORI

  亞洲當代藝術的網絡建構及機構、藝術家間的互訪、展演等交流形式,在近年來已經成為了一門顯學。但如果我們稍一不慎,我們就很容易讓民族主義所建構出來的疆界,壓抑了亞洲當代藝術交流所能釋放出的可能性。民族主義是遲至19世紀末才逐步的滲透進入亞洲的思想體系之中;透過了民族主義,許多疆域龐大、民族繁多的地區(譬如說印度、中國、印尼等地)被整合成同一個想像出的實體,但是實體內部的複雜性並未因為民族國家的成立而被消弭。當我們使用「國際」交流這個語彙時,我們其實是將交流架構在這個想像的結構之上;當我們用「國」與「國」的角度來思考亞洲不同地區間的藝術交流時,我們同時也在消弭「國家」內部的複雜性和多元性,甚至忽略了亞洲各民族和代表其主體性的文化、社會結構,早已突破了國家疆界的限制,進行互相的滲透。不但對於當代亞洲來說,國族疆界顯得無用和無趣,甚至也可以說,疆界從未存在,疆界只有在將交流活動機構化及學術化時,才會顯現。

  台灣本身作為一個獨立的政治/社會實體就是一種反疆界的實驗:不被國際普遍承認的「國家」地位、尚在建構中的國族認同以及日趨複雜的多元族群社會;以上這些狀態的敘述,都讓台灣成為一個「非國家」、「準國家」、甚至是「反國家」的「國家」。台灣因此可以自由的跳躍切換,在某些敘述脈絡下,以「地區」的概念、或是某種社群的概念成為可被交流的實體;在某些敘述脈絡下,又可一躍而成「國家」,以令人困惑的實體概念和「他國」進行交流。和多數亞洲「國家」不同之處,對於台灣藝術家而言,「台灣」這個符號本身作為一個實體,是備受質疑的。因為縱使台灣具備所有國家組織應有的條件之外(除了不被「他國」承認),台灣作為一個主體,依舊是島嶼上的每一份子,仍在持續建構中的概念。

  依據當今亞洲的政經氣氛來說,亞洲各國間的當代藝術交流,尤其是在政府組織間、或大型機構間所推動的交流,都可以看到不少區域文化戰略的企圖,隱隱約約的躲在光鮮亮麗的美術館展示或補助款之後。在這種情況之下,缺乏戰略價值、甚至並非是「國家」的台灣,往往不會被置入跨國的亞洲當代藝術網絡之中;加上台灣內部對外的封閉性,導致台灣藝術工作者往往無法即時的了解亞洲當代藝術網絡中的事件、乃至於能進入該網絡之中來共同建構這個新興的「文化共通體」。然而這種隔絕於外的孤立狀態,再加上對內部主體建構的方向也尚未達成定論;這兩個外部和內部的現實條件,迫使台灣藝術工作者在面對「亞洲」這個大議題時,往往會從探索台灣「內部的亞洲」開始。

李若玫作品《いしがきじま石垣島》截圖石垣島的「台灣人」。©李若玫提供。


  2009年,台灣藝術家李若玫(LEE Jo-Mei)的個展《いしがきじま石垣島》(Ishigaki Jima),就揭露了台灣歷史中某段被掩埋的角落。對李若玫而言,位於琉球的石垣島並不是單純的異國,該作品也並非用來討論異文化的交換;對藝術家來說,這僅是家族歷史的再現,述說的是台灣人在琉球群島的開拓史;李若玫循著祖父的記憶,在琉球找到了一群能說閩南語的老人家。關於台灣移民怎樣在琉球落腳,並且在戰後成為「日本人」,參考松田良孝(Yoshitaka MATSUDA)的《八重山的臺灣人》(八重山の台湾人,Taiwanese in Yaeyama Islands)可以獲得許多的資訊。從台灣邁入解嚴時代開始,日本殖民時代所遺留下來的「日本化的台灣」逐漸被重新的挖掘出來。這對「華人世界」來說,令人感到不安的事實,彷彿鬼魅一般的棲身在台灣文化的各個層面之中。透過日本藝術家下道基行(Motoyuki SHITAMICHI),其作品《torii》中所拍攝的鳥居,我們彷彿看到了一個被隱藏起來的「日本」,靜靜在台灣的巷弄或山野中繼續等待著時間的流逝。

下道基行在2012年的「光州雙年展」展出《torii》一作時,附上了拍攝到「海外」鳥居地點的地圖。©高森信男拍攝。


  如果說,尋找台灣內部的日本,或是日本內部的台灣,是有如尋找一群八重山(Yaeyama Islands)的老人或是鄉野中的鳥居遺跡一般,是在尋找一群「遺民」(survivors);那面對台灣內部的東南亞,以及東南亞眼中的台灣,則是直接衝撞「移民」(immigrants)為台灣所帶來的影響性。東南亞裔的移民已經對台灣的社會結構和文化景觀造成很劇烈的改變,這些移民不僅是來台暫時性居留的移工,也有不少越裔和印尼裔的「新娘」已經取得了台灣公民身份;根據2006年台灣內政部的統計資料,當年台灣新生兒中有3~5%的比例來自越裔的母親;同年,一年度就有約一萬人次由越籍歸化為台籍;2012年,台灣的總統大選出現了史上第一個以越語拍攝的競選廣告;對於尚無普遍民主直選經驗的越南來說,是難以想像的事情;根據最新的估計,台灣到了2020年代,甫畢業、即將進入職場的年輕人,每4~5人,就有一人的媽媽是來自越南、印尼或是柬埔寨等地。

侯淑姿「望向彼方:亞洲新娘之歌–侯淑姿個展」2010年於高雄市立美術館的展出情形。©侯淑姿提供。


  面對這樣的劇變,台灣的藝術家遠在和東南亞的藝術圈進行實質上的交流之前,就已經開始記錄位於台灣內部的「東南亞」。台灣藝術家侯淑姿(Lulu Shur-tzy Hou)自2005年的個展開始,就展開了一系列名為《亞洲新娘之歌》(Song of Asian Foreign Brides in Taiwan)的創作計畫。該計畫以較長的時間,一一記錄在台越配的生活和故事;藝術家最後甚至回到這些新娘的故鄉,來加以對照和比較兩地生活的差異。也許是出於台灣對理解自身內部的東南亞,有其迫切上的需求,這些創作者在台灣藝術圈皆獲得了實質的認同。譬如說饒加恩(YAO Chia-En)的作品《REM Sleep》即獲得第十屆「台新藝術獎」(2011 Taishin Arts Awards);該作品邀請在台灣工作的東南亞裔移工,請他們重述他們曾經作過的夢;透過這些夢境,一個更完整、且更真實的世界,被這些心理結構所揭露。蘇育賢(Yu-Hsien SU)描述印尼裔船工的作品,則是進到2011年威尼斯雙年展的「台灣館」中展出。

「四不像─兩岸四地藝術交流計畫」計劃中,展出的香港藝術家李俊峰〈流動酒吧大作戰〉,於台北市立美術館。©張晴文提供。


  台灣和東南亞之間的當代藝術交流,在這兩年來獲得了顯著的成長。除了國立臺北藝術大學的「關渡美術館」(Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts),其「關渡雙年展」(Kuandu Biennale)已經行之有年之外。民間藝術單位,諸如「打開-當代藝術工作站」(Open Contemporary Art Center)經營和泰國的當代藝術交流,以及「奧賽德工廠」(Outsiders Factory)經營和越南的交流,皆獲得了一定的成績。除了東南亞及日、韓之外,也無法忽視中國和台灣之間,錯縱複雜的關係:每當台灣要和中國進行交流,即便是藝術交流,台灣也必須要從「國家」的身份轉變為「地區」;而中國則搖身一變,成為了「大陸」(Mainland)。這種被迫對自我「國家」進行閹割的處境,大概是其他國家難以想像的;但也因為這樣的政治現實,讓台灣更可自由的在「國家」和「非國家」的位置間進行彈性的跳躍和轉換;並且根據不同的外在處境,發展出截然不同的策略和觀看方式。2012年的「四不像─兩岸四地藝術交流計畫」(It Takes Four Sorts– Cross-Strait-Four-Region Artistic Exchange Project)就提供了許多的可能性,讓不同的「地域」可以觀看彼此的差異性;這種各自描述、和各自互相觀看的過程反而質疑了「中國」作為一個實存文化主體的真實性。透過這計畫,我們也可以意識到,即便是在強制建構的政治疆界之內,疆界之內不同地域各自主體性間的差異和對話,這種「國內交流」(Internal-national exchange),所能產生的藝術能量和複雜的辯證結構,就已經超越了「國家」這個同質化的文化概念。

  其實以上這些針對國族疆界內部的異質化,以及文化、人民,因為歷史和政治經濟發展的因素而產生的互相滲透,並非只有台灣的藝術家和藝術團體樂於此道。舉例來說,南韓的藝術團體「mixrice」,關注南韓的移工和新移民已經超過十載;日本韓裔藝術家金仁淑(KIM Insook)則是透過攝影來關注日本韓裔的生命故事。這些例子都告訴了我們在進行亞洲各國間的交流時,我們必須要先拋棄以「國家」面對「國家」的「國際交流」概念,我們必須要更富有彈性、且更加有機地去看待亞洲各文化間的交融和滲透;並且同時意識到在國族疆界的內部,各自存在著許多龐大且多元的複雜結構。當交流從「國際交流」轉為「國內交流」(Internal-national exchange)時,並不代表跨越國家疆界間的交流就此中斷。相反的,僅是以「國家」為想像主體的交流將會被「國家」內部的社群、團體、族群、個人、地域所取代;這種交流權力更為廣泛分散,且更加貼近社會實境的藝術創作和藝術行動,正是塑造我所謂「內部的亞洲」的實踐基礎。而唯有透過對自身「內部的亞洲」進行更詳盡的探勘和挖掘,才能為未來的亞洲交流提供更多複雜和多元的文本和觀看方式,並且讓當代藝術間的「國際交流」能和當代文化的現實處境保持更為契合的狀態,藉此對亞洲大家族中的每個社群發揮更為廣泛的力量。



In recent years, the network construction of Asian contemporary art, the exchange visits between relevant institutions and artists, as well as associated exhibitions have become prominent subjects. However, nationalist boundaries would easily dismiss the possibilities created by Asian contemporary artistic exchange once we are slightly incautious of dealing with these subjects. It was not until the 19th century did nationalism pervade the Asian ideology. Through nationalism, each of the areas with vast territory and ethnic variety (e.g. India, China, and Indonesia) was arbitrarily integrated into an imaginary entity. Nevertheless, the establishment of nation-states did not eliminate the internal complexity of these areas. When we use the term of “international” exchange, we in fact construct the exchange on the basis of the above-mentioned imaginary structure. When we contemplate the artistic exchange among different regions of Asia from a “state”-to-“state” perspective, we simultaneously eliminate the internal complexity and plurality of a state. We even ignore the fact that Asian ethnic groups, along with their subjective cultures and social structures, have already crossed the boundaries of states and achieved mutual pervasion. For contemporary Asia, the boundaries between states seem to be worthless and vapid. We can also argue that those boundaries never existed. They appear only when the artistic exchange proceeds in an institutional and academic way. 

Taiwan as an independent political/social entity performs a kind of anti-boundary experiment: its “statehood” is not internationally recognized, the Taiwanese national identity is still in the process of formation, and the complexity of its multi-ethnic society is growing. These descriptions indicate that Taiwan is a “state” of “non-state,” “quasi-state” or even “anti-state.” Taiwan can therefore freely change its status according to the contextual requirements. Within some contexts, Taiwan interacts with other entities as a “region” or a community. Within other contexts, it becomes a bewildering “state” and interacts with “other states.” Different from most Asian “states,” the symbol of “Taiwan” as an entity is highly questionable for Taiwanese artists, because it is still a developing concept in the mind of every member on the island, even though Taiwan already has all the constituent elements of a state (except not being recognized by a great majority of states). 

According to the current political and economic atmosphere, we can easily observe various cultural strategic attempts behind the contemporary artistic exchange among Asian states, particularly those among governmental organizations or large-scale institutions. These attempts always wear the camouflage of splendid exhibitions or grants. Under this condition, Taiwan tends to be excluded from the transnational network of Asian contemporary art because it is short of strategic values and even not being recognized as a “state.” Besides, the poor receptivity of Taiwanese society to external events makes Taiwanese artists unable to immediately learn of the events unfolded in the transnational network of Asian contemporary art, and therefore fail to enter this network and co-construct the rising “cultural community.” Such isolation, together with the ongoing domestic dispute over the construction of Taiwanese subjectivity, always makes the exploration of “the Asia in Taiwan” the starting point of Taiwanese artists when they deal with the critical issue of “Asia.” 

The Taiwanese artist Lee Jo-Mei’s solo exhibition “Ishigaki Jima” (2009) reveals a forgotten piece of Taiwanese history. For Lee, the island that belongs to Okinawa is not simply exotic, and the theme of this work is not cross-cultural exchange. Instead, the work is simply the representation of her family history, and it depicts the settlement process of Taiwanese on the Ryukyu Islands. Lee followed the guidance of her grandfather’s memory and found a group of elderly people who speak Taiwanese in Okinawa. Yoshitaka Matsuda’s book Taiwanese in Yaeyama Islands is a mine of information on how Taiwanese immigrants settled in Okinawa and became “Japanese” after the Pacific War. After Taiwan entered the post-Martial Law era, the Japanese colonial legacy, namely the Japanized Taiwan, has been gradually re-excavated. This re-excavation presents various disturbing facts to the “Chinese world,” and these facts haunt every aspect of Taiwanese culture. Through the work “Torii” created by the Japanese artist Motoyuki Shitamichi, we seem to identify various images of “Japan” hidden in the alleys or mountain and fields in Taiwan tranquilly watching the passing of time. 

The search for the Japan in Taiwan is to that for the tori ruins in the countryside what the search for the Taiwan in Japan is to that for the elderly on the Yaeyama Islands. They share the same goal of searching for a group of “survivors.” Different from this goal, dealing with the Southeast Asia in Taiwan and the Southeast Asian’s impression of Taiwan directly reveals the immigrants’ influence on Taiwan. Southeast Asian immigrants have dramatically changed Taiwanese social structure and cultural landscape. These immigrants include not only migrant workers who temporarily reside in Taiwan, but also many Vietnamese and Indonesian “brides” who have already obtained Taiwanese citizenship. According to the statistics of Taiwan’s Ministry of the Interior, in 2006, the mothers of 3%-5% neonates are Vietnamese immigrants, and about ten thousands Vietnamese brides have been neutralized as Taiwanese that year. The first Vietnamese-narrated campaign advertisement appeared during Taiwan’s presidential election in 2012. It was unimaginable for the Vietnamese in Vietnam, who had never experienced universal and direct (democratic) elections. According to the latest estimation, one in every four or five newly graduated young people about to enter the job market has a Vietnamese, Indonesian, or Cambodian mother by the 2020s. 

To deal with such a dramatic change, Taiwanese artists have started to document the “Southeast Asia” in Taiwan long before they conduct substantial exchange with the Southeast Asian art circle. Since her solo exhibition in 2005, the Taiwanese artist Lulu Shur-tzy Hou has initiated a project of series works entitled “Song of Asian Foreign Brides in Taiwan.” The project took a long period of time to document the life of Vietnamese brides in Taiwan. Hou even visited the hometowns of those Vietnamese brides in order to make a comparison between their living conditions in Taiwan and Vietnam. This kind of creators is commonly recognized by Taiwanese art circle probably because there is an urgent demand for understanding the Southeast Asia in Taiwan. For example, the work “REM Sleep” created by Yao Chia-En was conferred the 2011 Taishin Arts Awards. Yao asked several Southeast Asian migrant workers to describe the dreams they have ever made, and then revealed a more complete and real world with the workers’ mental structures. Su Yu-Hsien was invited to present his work that depicts the life of Indonesian boatmen in Taiwan at the “Taiwan Pavilion” of the 2011 Venice Biennale. 

The frequency of contemporary artistic exchange between Taiwan and Southeast Asia has been increased considerably in the past two years. In addition to the Kuandu Biennale that has been held for years by the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts affiliated to the Taipei National University of the Arts, non-governmental artistic units such as the “Open Contemporary Art Center” and the “Outsiders Factory” also achieved great results in contemporary artistic exchange with Thailand and Vietnam respectively. In addition to Taiwan’s relationship with Southeast Asia, Japan, and South Korea, we cannot ignore the tangled and complicated relationship between Taiwan and China. Even in their artistic exchange, Taiwan has to change its status from a “state” to a “region,” while China becomes the “Mainland.” It might be quite difficult for other states to imagine such a situation that a “state” is forced to degrade its sovereignty. Nevertheless, such political reality enables Taiwan to flexibly switch its status between “state” and “non-state,” and develop different strategies and ways of observation according to its external circumstances. In 2012, “It Takes Four Sorts– Cross-Strait-Four-Region Artistic Exchange Project” created various possibilities that enable different “regions” to observe the differences between them. The process of respective description and mutual observation questioned the reality of “China” as a substantial cultural subject. Through this project, we also realized that, even within the compulsorily established boundaries, the artistic power and the complex dialectical structures produced through the “domestic exchange” shaped by the differences and dialogues among the subjectivities of different regions within the boundaries have gone beyond the homogenized cultural concept of “state.” 

In fact, not only Taiwanese artists and artistic groups, but also many foreign artistic actors delight in addressing the above-mentioned heterogenization within the boundaries of states as well as the mutual pervasion of cultures and people triggered by historical factors and the development of politics and economics. For example, the South Korean artistic group “Mixrice” has paid attention to the migrant workers and new immigrants in South Korea for over a decade; and the Korean Japanese artist Kim In-Sook focused on the life stories of Korean Japanese through photography. These examples suggest that we must first of all discard the concept of “state-to-state exchange” during the exchange among Asian states. We must treat the blending and pervasion of Asian cultures in a more flexible and more organic way. Meanwhile, we must be aware of the tremendous and plural complex structures within the boundaries of states. It does not imply the break-off of trans-boundary exchange when “international exchange” is transformed into “internal-national exchange.” Only the exchange based on the imaginary subject of “state” will be replaced by that among the internal communities, groups, ethnic groups, individuals, and regions of the “state.” The power of such kind of exchange spread much more widely, and makes artistic creation and action closer to social reality. This is exactly the practical foundation of what I term “the Asia in Asian States.” Only through a more in-depth exploration and excavation of “the Asia in Asian States” can we provide the future Asian exchange with a wider diversity of complex texts and ways of observation, maintain a well-matched state of affairs between the “international exchange” of contemporary art and the reality of contemporary cultures, and thereby exert greater influence on every community in the big Asian family. 


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