Sneak in Whale island

作品賞析

Sneaking on Whale Island is part of a new series by the artist Chuang Tsung-Hsun. It is a square composition with rounded corners—the shape of an app icon on a smart phone. Chuang hopes to integrate the scenes of this series into an image system, so that the act of appreciating them becomes a daily activity like tapping on the screen of a smart phone. Once Taiwan was called “Kun Island” because it was shaped like a whale. However, since modernization has removed us far from nature, we are gradually losing the “whale” in our minds. Even if one were to create a similar image, people would not recognize it, so it would have no meaning. However, in our modern lives we sometimes see playground equipment modeled after natural things, and supposedly it would help children get close to nature. Even so, city kids who have never really come into contact with nature might not even be able to sense the connection. They would be like the two children in the painting happily playing on the whale-shaped playground equipment—not knowing the historical significance of the whale under their feet.