MATA-the Island's Gaze

作品賞析

The director Cheng Li-Ming’s works have always crossed the two areas of video art and film. His video, MATA—The Island’s Gaze, originated from the story of the well-known British photographer John Thomson. In 1871, Thomson traveled to Taiwan and took many photos, which became precious historical records. Cheng Li-Ming used Thomson’s photographs of Siraya hunters as his theme. He believes that this series of photographs is the earliest Western visual record of Taiwan. The word mata in the Siraya language means “eyes,” so through the “eye” of the camera he disassembles and reconstructs this photo of a hunter, a black dog, and a child. He invited a Siraya elder, Wan Cheng-Hsiung, and an actor to reenact the process of posing for one of Thomson’s photographs, in an attempt to explore how a British adventurer and photographer of the 1800s saw Taiwan, and how we today, more than a hundred years later, are still looking for the answer to the question of our identity.