Statement
I participated an artist resident program called “ flow & flux” in May 2017 for one month; it’s an art village in countryside called “Sian Ciao” located in Chong Ming Island, witch in the north of Shanghai City, take one hour by car. This island is the second biggest island in china, famous for it’s natural environment and organic farm; it’s a popular traveling spot for city people. I took my partner Ms. Liu there to do the exercising program together.
For the topic of “flow & flux”, the first thing I did is searching for the news of the Sian Ciao Village on website, then, I found this topic is exactly tell the story of this place. Beside the economic city “Shanghai City”, I thought Sian Ciao would also be a city full of High-rise mansions. After searching on Google map, I found there are brawn and green color in square everywhere, here are rural area! It’s not allowed to room in to see the real photos of street, so I tried to search some news. In limited information, there are some keywords such as “beautify village” plan and the well-known “family instructions wall”, witch long 50 meters and high 3 meters, collected 210 families’ instructions, people there have great unity, efficient teamwork, pursuit of civilization progress, dream of reforming the village. Maybe the reason for this change is the aging population and the youth immigrating to big city, villages are pushing to reformed. Under the pressure of Songhai City, villages in Chong Ming Island trying to find their own status, they made lots of slogans and advertisements trying to make themselves more close to the idea of civilization.
After arriving Shanghai, there are two places shocked me a lot, one is there are slogans everywhere, telling you should be a civilized people, we should build a civilized city, again and again, with the sentences teaching you how to do, such as don’t throw garbage on the road, to be quiet, respect elder, to be polite…
The other thing shocked me is these families’ instructions are fake; most of them are given by government, this is a policy happened four years ago, government mean to pretend this village are well-educated, they made lots of instructions and gave to families forced them hanging on the wall. Only few families thought by themselves, anyway, these families’ instructions are not old, they are new and created by policy.
Concept
I began to think about what is civilization, how they define it, why it’s important to be civilized, why are they rushing to be civilized people? Do their methods really work efficiently? How are the idea effect local people?
In Taiwan, it’s rare to hear “families’ instructions” this kind of antiquated words. In moral education, our families are less and less to ask kids reciting Di Zi Gui (the rules for students), only in the school, our Chinese class still teaching The Four Books and Five Classics. In my childhood, I did recite the Di Zi Gui and Three Characters, beside the “static moral education”, all the elementary school have “healthy gymnastics”, in this “body education” system, government trying to keep children’ physical quality.
Based on the rules of education for people’s thought and body, I want to connect the discipline, and ask if it really works. Under the culture of controlling in china, I tried to be an intermediary developing an exercising plan. I used the families’ instructions in Sian Ciao Village and the slogans in Shanghai City, followed the meaning of the words, developing their action then created “healthy gymnastics”.
However, do we really become healthy by doing “healthy gymnastics”? Do people have great moral after set the “families’ instructions”? Beautify the village will be civilized? Following the Sian Ciao Village Healthy Gymnastics I created, It seems efficient but actually ineffective, make it be ironic within the truth of the media and advertisement, reflect the behavior of pursuit civilization and the purposeful discipline.
Description
In the first work I did in Sian Ciao Village. Here is the AD I made, I distributed the flyers in the village, invited people share the stories of instructions with us, developed the action for Healthy Gymnastics and danced together. We ride bicycle around the village everyday, pick different area of family in every alley as possible, asked them for interview. In the end, there are 12 families accepted our interview, 10 families did the Families’ Instruction Healthy Gymnastics with us.
After that, we made a teaching video for the village and gave back to these 10 families, then, we hold activities to teach local people doing this “Families’ Instruction Healthy Gymnastics” in their village activity area and also in the art village.
Here are the questions of the interviews:
- What are your families’ instructions? How they came from? Do they passed down from ancestors or created by yourself?
- Do you agree with your families’ instructions? Do you like it? What’s the connection with you, do you want to change your families’ instructions? Do you educate your kids by these instructions?
- Do you know the policy of this families’ instructions and the beautify village plan? How do you think about this policy? Do they bring any benefit to you or not? How is the changing of labor situation and your life?
- Would you create the Families’ Instruction Healthy Gymnastics with us and make it become video for this village?
作品簡介
2017年四月，我到位於上海北方的崇明島仙橋村駐村一個月，這個島緊鄰商業重鎮上海市，僅短短一個多小時的車程距，卻有如台北市與台南縣鄉村的景致落差。出發前的資訊搜尋中，得知這個村子有許多關於農村美化改造、家訓牆、美麗鄉村、創建鄉風文明等的相關報導。
面對當地使用政府強制發放的家訓作為文明的榜樣，宣揚家訓教化村名的行政方式，我從思想控制的角度切入發展作品，以自身反制當地體制，為當地的『假』家訓與標語編輯一系列健康操留給當地居民，教導當地居民跳健康操，創造一個『仙橋村健康操』，將家訓的箴言轉化為精神健康與身體健康兩者兼具的美妙活動，質疑該地對文明的定義以及實施文明教化方式的可行性。
為期一個月的駐村計畫，以身體介入當地社會人文場域創造新的對話，透過幽默的行為組合處理社會主義下的政治生態，質疑社會追求“文明”的方法有效性。第一部分發生於仙橋村，使用當地家訓為材料進行深度採訪，組織11戶人家一起為自家”新家訓”創造相對應的健康操動作，編創家訓健康操卡拉OK伴跳帶。跳健康操的過程中，我們不斷反覆地背誦”新家訓”的箴言與動作，用身體去詮釋家訓與其思想，讓家訓的規範擴展到行為動作上。最後彙整了一部”仙橋村家訓健康操“的伴跳影片，舉辦廣場活動邀請村民一起運動，並將影片留給當地使用。
許 懿婷 Hsu Yi Ting 