In the early days, before the introduction of artificial cements, our forebears would use their wealth of life experience and techniques to turn natural elements such as mud, rocks, bamboo, agricultural waste, and even feces, into building materials. This resulted in a variety of traditional construction techniques suitable for each specific area. For instance, when the Hakka people were forced to move their settlements higher into mountains, they made good use of rocks, piling them up to build retaining walls for field boundaries, embankments, bases for the walls of family residences, or stackyards and temple squares.
The curatorial project Low-Altitude Wanderer attaches importance to art's relation with local contexts and matters, so that art pieces can evolve alongside their location. Most Hakka villages are located on low-altitude areas of mountains, so people and the natural environment have an intimate relationship. Hakka culture excels at management of human and natural resources, developing life wisdom that enables people to coexist with the ecosystem using non-industrial technology such as irrigation ditches for farming. This symbiosis with the mountain coincides with the Satoyama Initiative that encourages the integration of conservation and the sustainable use of biodiversity in production landscapes.
Chief curator Eva Lin mentioned that there are three artworks in Zhuolan Township for this Arts Festival, all of which deal with the low-altitude ecosystem of Provincial Highway 3 from the perspective of flora. Inspired on the connection between locals, the village, and an old banyan tree, artist Lee Jo-mei made plant-dyed paper sculptures and placed them across the Zhan Bing Literature House. Australian artist Juan Ford gathered leaves and stems from local plants and built a human-shaped sculpture at Fengyuan Transfer Station. It aims to prompt discussion on the blurry line between natural and manmade through this action and image. Lo Yuan-hung's Ever Verdant Mountain, Slow Years sits in White Sail Elementary School. The hope is to share the stone stacking technique with more people through co-creation. After the piece is finished, young farmers will plant chayote above. As the crops grow, the artwork and the land will coexist and slowly form a new, organic scenery.
