Pigeon loft: The House of IKAROS

作品賞析

When the artist Chuang Tsung-Hsun was conducting fieldwork in central and southern Taiwan, he noticed that many houses on city fringes had pigeon houses on the top floors. These small, irregularly shaped houses amounted to a special feature of the landscape of the Chiayi-Tainan-Pingtung Coastal Plain. Many people regard pigeon houses with distaste, since they give a messy, unsightly impression, but for Chuang Tsung-Hsun, the pigeon houses seemed like resting places for fliers. They reminded him of the Icarus story from Greek mythology, who wanted to escape from the labyrinth on Crete, so he used wax to make wings and attempted to fly to freedom. Unfortunately, because he flew too close to the sun, the wings melted, and he fell to the sea—a tragic figure. This work, Pigeon Loft: The House of IKAROS uses the image of the pigeon house as a metaphor for the situation faced by many people in Taiwan who live in apartments built on the roofs of high-rises. They are chasing their dreams, but being trapped in a kind of relay station of dreams. They can only overlook the world’s desolation and wait to flap their wings.