Department of Cultural Affairs

 
Photo by Chen-Hsiang Liu
Taiwanese artist Sakuliu Pavavaljung was chosen to exhibit in the Taiwan Pavilion at the 2021 Venice Bienniale.
 
By Dory Chung
 
The Taipei City Fine Arts Museum (TFAM) has announced that works by Taiwanese artist Sakuliu Pavavaljung have been chosen as its main exhibit in the Taiwan Pavilion for the 59th Venice International Art Biennale in 2021.
 
In choosing Pavavaljung, the scholars, artists, and curators on the selection committee reaffirmed the importance for Taiwan of participating in the 2021 Biennale. Since the nineties, the Taiwan Pavilion has been an important portal to contemporary art in Taiwan. The Venice Biennale gives a space in which the changes and trends in Taiwan’s cultural aesthetics can be presented and brought to the attention of the international art world.
 
“This is a special time,” said Lin Ping (林平), director of the Taipei Fine Arts Museum. “The global pandemic has brought us to a time for deep reflection, forcing us to reconsider our relationships with other people and with the material world around us. Sakuliu is a wonderful storyteller. He retells stories we have forgotten through a variety of creations spanning the spheres of culture, politics, and economics. He breaks through the existing structures of mainstream knowledge and helps us rethink how to harmoniously live with the environment that we depend on.”
 
Sakuliu was born in 1960 in the Paiwan village of Tavadran in Sandimen, Pingtung County, where he grew up in a family of artisans. In the Paiwan language, his name means “arrow” and by extension “to stand up.” True to his name, Sakuliu has striven to be a creative pioneer, to disseminate his own ideas, and to carry to completion whatever he sees as his mission.

About this exhibition, Saguliu says: “I have always believed that my artistic creations are connected to the destiny of my nation. I never know what to do at an exhibition. My heart pounds, and I imagine myself hunting deep in parts of the mountains where I have never been. My bravery and skill are being put to the test. How can I catch my prey? The only way I can take on such a big challenge is to have a sense of caution and awe. I’ve tried to express my life experience in this exhibition.”

Recovering Faded Memories
 

Photo by Taipei Fine Arts Museum
Patrick Flores is the curator of 2021 Venice Biennial Taiwan Pavilion.

When he was young, Sakuliu worked as a plumber among the tribes. He deeply felt their powerlessness in the face of a traditional culture that had been transplanted and was fading away. So he decided to do field research by interviewing tribal elders in order to share their wisdom among the tribal villages: systematically collecting and organizing the results of his work in manuscripts and pictures, and recording the cultural meanings of traditional pottery and ceremonies such as weddings in Paiwan. He wanted to record fading tribal skills and recover disappearing tribal memory.
 
At the age of 24, he set up a studio to teach young artists how to preserve and recover traditional skills, cultivating them in the use of different materials to sculpt and create. Later, his research and practice turned to rebuilding cultural symbols and maintaining the sense of design of Paiwan houses. Before he turned 30, he reformed the tribal education system by establishing Tavadran Tribe Classrooms in order to improve education among younger generations, and launched the movements “Return of Indigenous Elites”, “Indigenous Name Recovery” and “Return My Surname”.
 

Photo by Sakuliu Pavavaljung. Courtesy of the artist
Sakuliu Pavavaljung, Carrying Ritual, from the Paiwan Wedding Ceremony Series, 2014.
 
When Saguliu was young, he moved among different tribes working as a plumber. He deeply felt the powerlessness of the tribes in being transplanted and lost in preserving their traditional culture. He began to do field investigations and interviewed elders in order to share their wisdom with the tribal villages. He systematically collected and organized the results of his work in manuscripts and pictures. He recorded the cultural implications of ancient pottery and traditional ceremonies such as weddings in Paiwan. He wanted to express the fading tribal skills and recover the disappearing memory of the tribes.
 
When he was 24, he set up a studio and taught young artists how to preserve and recover traditional skills. He cultivated young artists to use different material to sculpt and create. Later, he started to research and tried to rebuild cultural symbols and retain the design spirit of slate houses. Before he turned 30 years old, he reformed the tribal education system by establishing the "Tavadran Tribe Classrooms". Through these classrooms he sought to boost the education of younger generations, and initiated the movements "Return of Indigenous Elites ", "Indigenous Name Recovery" and "Return My Surname".
 
Sakuliu’s work rediscovering and revitalizing traditional culture can also be seen in his creations. In 2018, he won the National Literature and Art Award—the first indigenous artist to receive the honor.
 
In order to fully expand the network of the Taiwan Pavilion in this highly competitive international art venue, the Taipei Fine Arts Museum and Sakuliu commissioned Patrice Flores to plan the exhibition. Flores is a curator who has long studied Asian contemporary art and Austronesian cultural studies.
 
Taiwan: A place of extraordinary creativity


Photo by Sakuliu Pavavaljung. Courtesy of the artist
Sakuliu Pavavaljung, Borderlands: A Memory of Light, Sakuliu Solo Exhibition, 1995.
 
A professor in the Department of Art Studies at the University of the Philippines and a curator at the Vargas Museum of Manila, Flores was curator of the Philippine National Pavilion at the 2015 Venice Biennale, art director of the Singapore Biennale in 2019, and a guest scholar of the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. He was also a visiting researcher at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., a member of the Asian Art Association under the Guggenheim Museum, and an advisory committee member of the ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe in Germany. With his wealth of experience and international connections, he can connect the Taiwan Pavilion to global art circles.
 
About this collaboration, Flores said, “Saguliu’s creation comes from a unique place in a country of extraordinary creativity: Taiwan. It is rooted in and nourishes the life of the indigenous Paiwan tribe. There is a dynamic interrelationship between him and a rapidly changing society.”
 
“Sakuliu stands at this turning point and strives to transform the character of this place and build a bridge to modern society. With his considerable knowledge, he expresses ancient mythology, tribal intrigues, and holistic cosmology through his art, which includes painting, photography and animation.”
 
“On the other hand, he has revealed the wisdom of artistic intervention through carving, environmental construction, installation and cultural work. I am honored to be planning the exhibition of Saguliu for the Taiwan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2021.”
 
“I am deeply interested in his complex artistic language and his in-depth construction in the Sandimen community in Pingtung County in Taiwan. I was born in the Philippines. With my Southeast Asian background, I am eager to include his community and my hometown to show the context of the South Island culture. I also would like to engage in a discussion about the meaning of the ‘contemporary’ or the ‘local’.”