Two-channel video installation (20 min., colour, sound) | dimensions variable

Songs of Oblivion: Prelude is rooted in the artist’s long-term research into the traditional singing practices of the Tao people and the political history of Lanyu Island under post-war Taiwanese military administration. Central to the work is the former Lanyu Farm (1958–1990), a network of correctional labor camps established across the island.

Drawing from oral testimonies, archival materials, and traditional Tao songs, the project examines how political violence is remembered, narrated, and transmitted across generations through acts of singing and listening. Combining documentary and experimental approaches, the work brings together fragmented stories, sonic traces of memory, and performative acts of singing in a multilayered reflection on memory, history, and representation.

Rather than presenting history as a fixed narrative, the project approaches memory as a living and contested process through which experiences of violence, loss, and resilience continue to be negotiated in the present through sound. The work forms part of Songs of Oblivion, an ongoing artistic research project that explores the auditory dimensions of history and collective memory.

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Image 1-2: Exhibition view, the 25th Biennale of Sydney: Rememory, White bay power station Sydney, photo by Document Photography. With generous support from Phileas – The Austrian Office for Contemporary Art, and Federal Ministry Housing, Arts, Culture, Media, and Sport Republic of Austria. Courtesy of the artist
Image 3-6: Video stills, Songs of Oblivion: Prelude (2019-26). Courtesy of the artist