Dondon Hounwn

Tomong tribe, Truku people
Born 1985, Tongmen Village, Xiulin Township, Hualien County, Taiwan
Lives and works in Hualien

Dondon Hounwn’s work cuts across media, generational and cultural lines, blending ancestral knowledge with avant-garde, cross-gender aesthetics. His diverse background includes training in indigenous dance, music and theatre, and working as a cultural administrator and lecturer. His activities as an artist are accordingly multifarious: an inheritor of tribal ballads, instruments and rituals, he also works in performance, installation, video and environmental theatre. In addition, Hounwn runs the Erlu Art Creation Workshop, which hosts artist residencies in his Dowmung community and encourages young practitioners to research Truku cultural heritage.

In APT10, Hounwn presents 3M – Three Happenings 2018, which documents his shamanic performances as videos, housed in structures derived from traditional workers’ huts. In Truku language, when an M is placed before a verb, it means something is happening in the present. Each performance reflects on subjects from the changing meanings and significance of ritual and belief, and the struggle for official recognition by some of Taiwan’s indigenous tribes.