Between Earth and Sky
Indigenous Contemporary Art From Taiwan
Co-curators: Etan Pavavalung and Manray Hsu
Between Earth and Sky: Indigenous Contemporary Art from Taiwan explores land, ecology and cosmology through a cross-generational selection of artists working in painting, sculpture, textiles, ceramics, installation and performance. With cultural, linguistic and ancestral links across the Austronesian world, Taiwan’s indigenous peoples have called the island home for millennia, arriving well before the first Han migrations at the end of the seventeenth century. Dispossession and forced assimilation at the hands of successive colonial regimes have resulted in the loss of language, land and culture.
Emerging from the Aboriginal People’s Movement, indigenous contemporary art has flourished as a vehicle for the expression of collective identity, the revival of cultural traditions and the interrogation of contemporary issues. Presenting the work of eight dynamic artists from this rich and vibrant field, Between Earth and Sky showcases the diversity, innovation and relevance of Taiwan’s indigenous contemporary art, speculating on future relationships between humans, the land and the many species that inhabit it.
Produced in collaboration with the Taiwan Indigenous Peoples Cultural Development Centre