Eco of Pain
Green Island,
Taiwan
 |
| Sunil Sigdel, Eco of Pain |
The government of Taiwan conducted a workshop in Green Island commemorating the well over 2000 political prisoners that consisted of writers, painters and artists amongst others. The organizers summoned 20 artists that included the local and the foreign art practitioners. In the present day this prison house in Green Island has been turned into a museum.
I worked in one of
the prison rooms where I created three different art works that were
interconnected with one another. In one of my installation I selected eight
names out of 2000 prisoners and wrote them on the wall. Then I covered it with
eight fishing net. Since it was an island and our materials to create artworks
were limited therefore I incorporated a fishing net that was easily available
there. My
intension of using
fishing net was because I wanted to represent suffocation since the harsh
fishing net is used to capture and kill fishes. Here, as I stated above, the
eight fishing nets contained names of the eight prisoners. On the exact opposed
wall of this installation I arrangied eight of my color photographs that were
covered with the fishing net.
In my second
presentation I used the same photos but this time in b/w which I pasted all over
the tiles of the toilet. I came to know from the museum personnel that the
prisoners were extremely tortured. The Green Island prison is located in the
island which is surrounded by the sea; therefore, the prisoners could see the
vast sea but when it came to using water to take shower or drink they had to use
the water from the toilet. This created an everlasting torture in the mind of
the prisoners. By manipulating such sentiments I arranged my portrait in the
hole of the toilet, as if a prisoner is trying to come out of it.
My third work
consisted of barb wire that was placed on the window. The prisoners could see
the open space outside; however, that was the only solace that they could get.
Other than that, their freedom was not only snatched away from them, but toping
that, they were extremely tortured by using various methods. I also came to know
that there were 16 different methods to torture these prisoners. Few of these
methods were by making them take dog shit, drink urine, pressing their fingers,
taking off their finger nails, locking them in the ice room, excessively beating
one of the prisoners and make the others see or hear the painful scream etc. I
wrote these methods of torturing in the wall and then placed the barb wire below
the window overlapping the writings. In this presentation my intention was to
compare the outer open expansive view from the prison window and the inward
torturous and grim cell.
