• Year : 2022

• Title : Man Walking in the Mountain Bearing a Water Pipe

• Media : Generative and Interactive Installation

• Statement :

  This is an interactive installation I created during my residency in Makotaay Eco Art Village located in Fengbin Township, Hualien County, Taiwan. A heavy and long water pipe was put in the exhibition space. In front of the pipe, a screen was displaying a generative graphic. It depicted a man who was bearing a water pipe and walking in the mountain. This work let visitors experience the hardship of the villagers who constructed their own pipe network for water supply. When a visitor lifted the water pipe in the space, the graphic would be animated to a more unrest and turbulent state; when s/he put down the pipe, the graphic would go back to a more static representation.

Water is the fundamental need of human survival. However, the Fengbin village had been lacking water supply for agricultural use. The villagers thereby decided to construct their own water pipe network, which connected over 4 kilometers of pipelines from the source deep in the mountain. Without financial and government support, the network was built by primitive labour power. The villagers had to bear and carry the pipes to the mountain and connect them one by one. The burden and hardship are out of our imagination.