Two Indonesian poets meet at Tainan Park, using daytime experiences to craft poetry. Inspired by encounters and emotions, their creations take shape through night-time chanting, imagination, and action. Taman-taman (Park) unfolds a journey resembling an ancient fable, with untold stories hidden in the endless night. The storytellers become integral parts of the narratives as well.
H is a migrant worker from Indonesia like wandering around and he already ran away for over a year. He built a temporary hut on his ex-employer’s farmland. He took his friend R in the shelter who ran away from metal processing factory and almost got caught when working in a tea plantation. Because of that R rarely steps outside the hut. Tonight, H receives a phone call from his friend T. She said she runs away from fruit processing factory and will come over with her friend B who also ran away from the auto-parts factory. Later the night, run away housekeeper E and D who run away from screw factory appear in the hut. In the same night, the hut of H already becomes well-known.
“The passing of time would be meaningful and memorable only when something happens.” Commissioned by Chiayi Art Museum, the crew revisit locations where photographer FANG Ching-mian, known as Uncle Hsin-kao, shot 70 years ago in Yushan (Niitakayama). The story of Uncle Hsin-kao and landscapes is told by interweaving a variety of climbers, scenery and Bunun Narration. The narration implies the presence and absence of certain characters in Taiwan history. Through the off-screen voice, a layer of discourse is created with the narrator's role, Bunun's lines, and the images. The absence of the indigenous people in the history of photography, the presence and revisit of the crew, the reports and postcards created by Uncle Hsin-kao reveal a poetic story between Uncle Hsin-kao and landscapes.
Suthat, a young man from the northeastern part of Thailand, has worked in Taiwan for six years. He does not aim to save money, nor does he have any plans for the future. He has just moved to Taichung. Four months ago, he visited the ASEAN Square for the first time. It was in a Thai disco club that he met the film crew that was scouting locations and looking for materials for a production to be shown in a group exhibition at MoCA Taipei in May. For reasons unknown, the film crew invited Suthat to join the film. That day, Suthat came to the ASEAN Square to celebrate the Songkran festival with his friends. During the past four months, he has made quite a few friends; and today, the film crew with a Thai interpreter became his new friends.
We found Ishikawa's sketching route by following the 1909 travelogue of Kinyichiro Ishikawa's "Tataga's Memories" (タッタカの思出): the Nantou mountainous area was once a battleground for the aboriginal people and the Japanese army, and because of the need to contact the farm for filming, we learned that in 2016, the Meifeng Farm in Taichung University accidentally discovered the site of the garrison in the park, and so we decided to take the members of the Southern Art Association and their friends to go there and make a two-day and one-night sketching tour. The trip was a two-day, one-night sketching tour. For this sketching trip after 110 years, a few young Sedgwick men working at NTU's Mountain Experimental Farm cleaned up fallen trees and weeds in the park after the typhoon, and worked continuously in the forest, waiting for the upcoming team of painters and a team of photographers.
31st August 2017, Nguyễn Quốc Phi, a Vietnamese undocumented runaway foreign worker, got nine shots by the police, who claimed he resisted arrest and he couldn’t be stopped by pepper spray or truncheon. Since there’s no CCTV footage nor testimony from Nguyễn, the film was made according to the police report’s perspective and therefore only visualizing two police officers fighting with thin air.
Jun. 2nd, 2013, Nalam, an Indonesian undocumented foreign worker misheard the police from “donʼt run” to “take a photo”. And later arrested after taking photo with the undercover officers. It was shortly reported as a hilarious news. What if we invited three Vietnamese martial art masters as Nalam, and if he escaped from assaulting the police?
