Artistic Intervention: From Conflict to Coordination

1. Artistic Intervention: From Conflict to Coordination Cedric 496200458 Ruth 496200818 Jeff 497200803 Winni 497200798 Harriet 497200786

2. Main Idea • There are many ways to preserve urban spaces, including using art to advocate for the community. At least, art is a possible way for preservation. From the example of Treasure Hill, there are conflicts that inevitably arise and the efforts do not always yield desirable results.

3. Outline • Main Idea • History of Treasure Hill • Treasure Hill spaces discussion and Reusable Unoccupied Space (Wu kueimei 吳桂美) • Art Intervention in Treasure Hill • Artivism in the Last Organic Community of Taipei • The Exhibition of Treasure Hill • Solutions • Discussion Questions

4. History of Treasure Hill Harriet Hou

5. Early Developments • Treasure Hill is the name of the Guan-yin Shrine. • At the end of 17th century, in Qing Dynasty, some people immigrated to Taiwan and lived here. • 1930s: • militarybunkersandwardsneighboringthe shrine, and warehouses for water purification plant. • 1945-1950s: • military bunkers and buildings continued to be used for military purposes. • Besides military personnel, there were only 6 households (according to the video).

6. Early Developments • 1950s-1960s: • Many poor soldiers from Mainland China, started to secretly build shelters/houses around the shrine (self-help squatter buildings). • City lacked housing. • Original dwellers also rented rooms. • Some employees of the water plant start seeking settlement in Treasure Hill. • 1970s: • Military Headquarter relocated elsewhere. Even more illegal housing appeared. (around 200 households)

7. The Buildings • Building materials come from anything useful they could find, e.g. wood from old markets, train stations, as well as rocks from the river. • Many people worked during the day, and built their house in the evenings. • Treasure Hill’s dwellers then included “senile citizens, single veterans, social underclass, students, and South-East Asian immigrants” (“Altered Space”)

8. Government Intervention • 1980s-: • Taipei City Government wants to take down the illegal buildings for betty city planning. • Treasure Hill was planned to become a park. • Early 1990s: • Parts of Treasure Hill were forced taken down. • 1997: • Gov. slowed down and begin proposing relocation plans. • 2001-2002: • Relocation of several dwellers was done, and the gov. took down 40+ houses that often gets flooded.

9. Conflicts • A lot of dwellers and NTU professors and students opposed the idea of taking down Treasure Hill. Constant protests eventually changed city government’s idea. • 共生聚落:including ‘art village’, hostels • City Gov. wants 2 years to renovate T.H. and asked dwellers to move out by the end of 2006. Offered 3 options: • NT$760,000 Monetary Aid and never move back. • NT$360,000 Monetary Aid and can move back after 2 years (rent & 12 years max) • Move to中繼住宅 (only 16 households chose this option)

10. Artistic Efforts and Others • Will be discussed later…

11. The Treasurehill Spaces discussion and Unoccupied space reusable by Wu kueimei吳桂美 Cedric Yeh 496200428

12. Introduction: Thesis • It is aimed to reconsider the possibility of unoccupied and occupied spaces of treasure hill. • 五項設計理念：resident-oriented • 貼心 • 機能 • 環境 • 經濟 • 文化 Hung, Peichung. Wunhou.http://web.cc.ncu.edu.tw/~92502048/lightmyfire/2/culture1.htm

13. Problems • City views • Illegal shack = eye-sore • mass • Security • An ideal place for outlaws to hide • Gather place for wonderers • Hygiene • Trash → spread of infectious and contagious diseases

14. Problems • 寶藏巖“共生”聚落？ • Insufficient interaction and communication b/t the artists and locals • Less dwellers • Coexist with whom? • Whose Treasurehill?

15. Introduction: Argument • 情理法之爭： • Gov. v. intervening groups • Villagers v. outsiders (i.e. artists) • Love for hometown and relation among neighbors • Will the artistic integration really reviving the village?

16. Synopsis of Population Structure • Legal: = 50 houses • Illegal: > 100 ppl • Age structure: • Opposite pyramid population • Worse than contracting model Fig. 1. piramide della popolzaione residente Fig 2 SuzanneKn. “Demographic Transition Model (DTM) pyramids.” Wikipedia.Com. March 3rd 2010. Dec. 12th 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DTM_Pyramids.svg Hugh, Edward. “piramide della popolzaione residente persesso e cittadinanza al.” 2006. Dec. 12 2010. http://edwardhughtoo.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html

17. Premise for Renovatingthe Community • 由內而外，由小而大的整理架構發展，保留原始精神，改善衛生安全 (“Abstract”)。 • for the elders • Job opportunity for financially underprivileged • Organic layers of treasurehill: • Metabolism of unoccupied spaces for locals: • as entertainment • Tourism as economic boost

18. Summary of the Author’s ideas • 找出社區中心 • 創造硬體網路及通報網路 • 敦親睦鄰的設計概念 • 創造經濟性休閒產業 • 保留空間特色

19. Art Intervention in Treasure Hill

20. What is art intervention? • An interaction with a existing artwork, audience or venue/space. • Associated with the Viennese Actionists, the Dada movement and Neo-Dadaists. • Art enters a situation outside the art world to change the existing conditions there. • Cow Parade 2009 (Huashan Creative Park) & 粉樂町 2006~2010 (East District)

21. Art in Public Space • Works of artists undertaking residences in industrial or social settings(Miles) • Art as a load of memory(Grout) • No longer historical or epic monuments • A record of events and memories at a certain period of time • Sharing of communal experiences of artists and residents without hierarchy

22. Art in Public Space • Art as a representation of time & space(Grout) • Creation of time-space (unusual, critical, questionable etc.) • Ways of seeing: one perspective to multiple perspective (Impressionists: representation of time) • Different space in different time

23. Treasure Hill: Old Community to Public Space • Public space as agora in ancient Greek • Agora (公民集會廣場) : A marketplace and meeting place, central to every Greek city and town • A place for meeting, exchanging and putting something into practice • How to create an agora? • Interaction and mobilization of people rather than installation of facilities • Art as a media easy to make connections between people and environment (Grout)

24. Treasure Hill: Public Space to Artist Village • The efforts of 寶藏嚴公社 • Keep Treasure Hill as a historical site • Emotional connection of art, history and residents • Art intervention in old space • Invitation of resident artists • Exposition of Disadvantaged Communities Reconstruction in Taipei City (1998) • Treasure Hill New Discovery Film Festival of (2002) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Xv7xA4QGMQ (3:10~4:14)

25. Treasure Hill: Public Space to Artist Village • Organization of Urban Re-s (OURs) • Organization of Bureau of Cultural Affairs • Treasure Hill Artivists (artist-activist) Co-op Program (2003) • Treasure Hill homeland – an alternative social housing • A youth hostel • An ecological learning field • Artivists-in-residency • Sharing of facilities (workshops for arts and creative theatres, darkroometc.)

26. Treasure Hill: Public Space to Artist Village • Global Artivists Participation Project (GAPP) • Artistic experiments from 2003 to 2004 • Invite artists from around the globe to submit proposals for identity-building activities • To raise Treasure Hill’s publicity and public support through arts program • To legitimatize the community in the eyes of the government • To explore the limits of former “artless” community using creativity to build community identity http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Xv7xA4QGMQ (6:02~7:13)

27. Treasure Hill: Public Space to Artist Village • Treasure Hill Artist Village (THAV) • Took over by AIR (Artist-in-Residence) Taipei in 2010 • 14 studios for the “Artists-in-Resident” program, two exhibition rooms and two rehearsal rooms • Arts and Culture Group Offices for individuals and organizations as a platform for the art and cultural exchange • Make reservation before visiting http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uAUyinDz4c&feature=related

28. Artivism in the Last Organic Community of Taipei Ruth Pan

30. The Urban Edge conceived as a place • Traditional urban planning cannot provide solutions for modern urbanity’s density growth • Taipei no exception (transformation of agrarian sector and dependent capital accumulation) • The urban edge (Treasure Hill) as deviances from power core’s attempt to control urban sprawl/strycture

31. The Urban Edge conceived as a place (2) • Treasure hill as having muli-layer meaning and complexity • product out of informal city but has own spirit of place • Pre-modern organic village but also an understated resistance to the rationality and cosmopolitan modes of Taipei

32. Describing the Process • Adaptive reuse: process of adapting old structures to new uses (artists move in, youth hostel idea) • Architectural reconstruction: returning a building to a known earlier state • Citizens' uses before GAPP

33. Treausure Hill’s Artivists • GAPP as spatial experiment and social practice • Concept of artivism • Time concern, some artists not develop close ties with the village and their artist-in-residency programs ended rapidly • Some others developed new possibilities of dialogue with the community life of the village

34. The Other-Homeland Theme • 2003 GAPP theme for all activities held • Wanted to create a dialogue between the social and cultural others and their transitional shelters into the alternative homeland • Reflection of collective identity of many immigrants from different eras and native lands

35. Organic Layer Taipei • Finnish architect-landscape artist Marco Gasagrande • Based on keen observation, sensitive intuition, personal socio-ecological concern created “the attic” concept project • Attic as a special space taking in lesser used objects from family but not yet discarded

36. Organic city/community: city without history or layers illegal shacks • Not government planned or legitimized (compared with skyscrapers, libraries, master-planned blocks)

37. Organic Layer Taipei

38. Organic Layer Taipei

39. Con-fronting the realities of Treasure Hill through artivism and planning • GAPP as strategic tool for cultural landscape conservation at Treasure Hill • Artivism of GAPP not dominated by “artsy” creative concepts, rather they extend definitions of art in the community • Should have been activism that was counter-institutional, ended up quasi “art-curatorial’ project under gray area of regulations in city government supervision

40. The Exhibition of Treasure Hill Winni Huang 497200798

41. 泡茶照相館Treasure Hill Tea + Photo Project (2004~2006) 葉偉立

42. Activist • 葉偉立 • 1971 Born in Taipei, Taiwan 1997 MFA in Photography Rhode Island School of Design Providence

43. TeaProject- ideal aspect • Spatial practice (空間實踐) • An observer, recorder, creator • Try to interpret the pastfrom debris, lives… • To build a new identification • An open studio- • Hope to be a place where people interact • Use Taiwanese tradition as a communicating bridge • Hope to shorten the distance and to make friends • Hope to collect photograph portfoliowith several topic

44. Tea Project- realistic aspect • Few residences come to the studio • Different from the gathering area • The use of camera • The hostility of residents toward those activists because of misunderstanding • Enter unoccupied house • Gather deserted goods

45. 1st Phase- Portrait(肖像系列) • photo 400 guests (only 20 residents) • Photos as postcards displayed in the studio

46. 2nd Phase-Delineations(寫生系列) • Record the process of establishing the studio • The massy and muddy interior of the house • Many painting and repairing works • Rough equipments for photography • Expect to develop relationship with local ppl. • Cherish every chance of talking and photo taking

47. 3rd Phase-Trash(垃圾系列) • Insist to clean the attic and storehouse • Emphasize the experience of the activists • Face the rotten goods and garbage • Live in a unfavorable environment • Satire: Modern art equal to trash?

48. 4th Phase-Garden & Archive(花園和阿凱夫) GARDEN Part • Beautify the environment • Recycle deserted furniture • Build the pond • Plant trees • Acceptance from the local ppl. • Realize the activist makes the place better • Sharing foods and the building tips

49. 4th Phase-Garden & Archive(花園和阿凱夫) ARCHIVE Part • Guard and display the goods • Show the respect to the past • Restore the memory of the past

50. Solutions • Repair sequence: unoccupied → occupied • Enhancement on • Facilitation • Surveillance system: a. Security ↑ b. Emergent case, i.e. immediate Medicare for elders c. as a precaution against crime