Betelnut Tree, Bird's Nest Fern and Giant African Snails

作品賞析

Betelnut Tree, Bird’s Nest Fern, and Giant African Snails is a semi-documentary dual-channel video by the artist Chang Ting-Tong. Through two videos, one showing him with Ami hunters and one showing him with bird’s nest fern farmers, it presents the three-way relationship among Taiwan’s betel nut trees, bird’s nest ferns, and giant African snails. The betelnut tree was introduced to Taiwan by the Dutch and once had extremely high economic value. However, after the price crash, many abandoned betelnut groves formed in Taiwan, but later, they were revived due to the popularity of cultivating bird’s nest fern. African giant snails were once introduced to Taiwan for food purposes, but due to lack of effective management and stigmatization due to artificial rumors, many found their way into the wild and multiplied in large numbers, harming native crops like bird’s nest fern. Through these three species as “objects,” the artist attempts to review the relationships among politics, the economy, and culture.