Made in Taiwan 2009
When I was a kid the few toys my family could afford were mass-produced objects Made in Taiwan. I knew nothing about this country nor did I, in my small-town-Texas mentality care. All I knew is that they were cheap enough for my parents to buy. Thirty-plus years later I was granted the opportunity to work in Taiwan as a three-month Resident Artist at the Tainan University of the Arts in Southern Taiwan. Now, this amazing country has imprinted itself on my concepts and objects, both personally and politically. “Made in Taiwan” started with a sabbatical proposal titled “Casting Taiwan: A visual inquiry of global consumerism through United States and Taiwanese objects.” My research, as an extension of my work of the past seven years which critiqued the American “consumer body,” centered on the production of a series of works investigating Taiwanese mass-produced objects. Taiwan is a country that thrives on consumerism to the same extent as the United States and is also a major exporter of products to America. Taiwan and the United States also share a similar ambiguous feeling about Chinese relations.
In Taiwan, my work became more visually literal pertaining to the interrelated histories of four countries: Taiwan, China, Japan, and the United States. The work examined the current and historical relationship between these countries. I made three life-size hand-built figures depicting my four-year-old daughter as an American Toy soldier. These mass-produced figures had eyes cut out, directly referencing Japanese haniwa soldiers, and the hair spiraled into lotus buns reflecting the standing Chinese terracotta warriors, both references serving to draw attention to the historical and contemporary influence of Japan and China on Taiwan. I also wanted to locate my work within the continuum of the ceramic tradition of red clay figurative sculpture.
The figures were installed with 11 one-of-a-kind porcelain slip-cast toys found in Taiwan. My original intent was to find toys in Taiwan, from Taiwan. However in the end I chose to use the toy collection of a Taiwanese friend, which was comprised of toys produced in various countries throughout the world. These globalized toys dating from the 1950s to the 2000s. This collection served to illustrate the fact that Taiwan is as globally engaged as any country.
During my time in Taiwan I remained hyper-aware of the ubiquitousness of water, and as the objects accumulated the installation grew into a manifestation of my impression of the country surrounded by and full of water. My earlier “War Baby” series discussed the products and by-products of current American wars fueled by the concerns of the Petrochemical industries that feed on the import and export of oil. While in Taiwan my thoughts became inundated with the notion of water rising around this country, literally as a result of global warming and figuratively by the encroachment of looming global powers. I placed my figures on green Taiwanese mountains, threaded with blue water, either rising or sinking into the empty space around them. Three of the porcelain toys were placed slightly out of reach of the three figure-children and the other eight were placed completely out of reach. The precious porcelain toys were hung upside down with blue thread hovering at the height of a child on a green mountain. The figures, mountains, and toys were surrounded by smaller, receding green circles, which resembled islands or lily pads.
Although global/political issues served as the conceptual foundation for this work the end result expressed non-specific poetry of un-attainability.
