HEMP Project
The Voyage of the Shuttle series consists of three boat-shaped sculptures based on the form of a weaving shuttle. Each work is connected to the place where its materials were gathered: ramie from Taiwan, flax from Europe, and hemp from Thailand.
The Boundary Landscape series consists of three woven tapestries. They follow behind the shuttle boats, like traces left in water. In each tapestry, the artist places plant fibers that she gathered and stripped by hand during her field research. These fibers root the works in the places she visited. This close act of collecting and weaving shows a dialogue between material, land, and memory. The tapestry is not only a map. It is also a reflection on territory, identity, and the relationship between people, environment, and time.
Voyage of the Shuttle – Ramie began with the artist’s field research in Hualien, Taiwan, on ramie culture and weaving practices. From planting and harvesting to twisting fiber and weaving nets or cloth, ramie thread remains in constant dialogue with the body. Inspired by this process, the artist reconnects the form of a bamboo weaving shuttle with the image of a bamboo raft, transforming a tool into a symbolic vessel carrying the histories and circulation of ramie in Taiwan. The raft holds a ramie sail, Japanese kimono fabric, yen coins, shells, woven baskets, ramie fibers, and driftwood shaped like the island of Taiwan. These elements evoke colonial history, trade, labor, and cultural exchange, while reflecting Taiwan’s complex historical formation. Here, material becomes more than a substance—it serves as a record of time, labor, and memory. Through the intertwined metaphors of weaving and drifting, the work frames weaving as an ongoing process of cultural transmission and identity.
Border Landscape – Makutaai is inspired by the Hualien–Taitung region in eastern Taiwan. The title refers to Makutaai—an Amis word meaning “harbor”—which marks both the geographic and conceptual starting point of the artist’s field research. The area is home to many Indigenous communities, including the Amis, Bunun, and Atayal, whose traditional practices of ramie planting, fiber harvesting, and weaving inform the work. The tapestry combines ramie fibers collected and stripped by the artist with blue nylon rope. Flowing across the surface, the rope outlines landforms, rivers, and the ocean. Through this tactile weaving, the work evokes both the physical landscape and the memories embedded in it, reflecting how Indigenous communities live between mountains and sea through a deep relationship with the land.