Ageless: Cultivation
Sound and Multiple Installation | 25' 48" Size Variable | 2020
Language represents the historic evolution of a cultural community. Moreover, it is a tool for expressing thoughts. Learning foreign languages echoes with babies’ babbling and human experience of integrating into collective living, implying the connotations of embarkment and construction of “new life” and “new connection”.
In our country, Japanese is currently one of the primary options in terms of learning a second foreign language. In addition to the similarities of its characters with those of Mandarin, certain geographic, historical and cultural links also make it more accessible and less unfamiliar. “Japanese class” forms the majority of the foreign language courses provided for silver-haired citizens in Dar-hong and Wang-gong Communities in Xinying District, Tainan, where Japanese course is held almost every day. Consequently, there is an evergreen class that has existed for almost more than a decade. Ko Ching-Chuan, the first teacher of this class, has received Japanese education. As a victim of political persecution, he has been imprisoned for 12 years during the White Terror period in the 1950s. By observing and participating in the classrooms of “Japanese class” and “Japanese singing class” held by the Community Development Association, I felt a training of technique of living about “cultivation”, as well as manifestation and transmission of “spirit” embodied by these elderlies.
In responding to the reality of change in the demographic structure in a social situation with ageing population, the government and the academia reanchor the core of the elderly’s social participation, giving rise to several conceptual terms which cohere social situations and bear promotional meaning, such as “銀齡 (literally “silver age”), “樂齡” (literally “happy age”) or “無齡” (literally “ageless”). Among them, the status and culture implied by whether “happy age” or “ageless” that emerged more recently involve support systems in psychological and spiritual aspects, ranging from an individual at a micro level to a cultural community at a macro level. And, in the revolution of the universe and Nature, incidences of life and extinction are physically inevitable. Every stage of the human life cycle is unique and filled with infinite possibilities of sustainable growth. Experiences at all stages of life shift between “nil” and “existence” following the flow of motion. How to give up “existence” and return to “nil”? Such drive manifests the spirits and thoughts pertaining to different individuals and cultures. The learners of technique in class correctly represent the socially expected learning at a “happy age”, while incarnating an “ageless” spirit, further showing their own unique gestures of life. No utilitarianism, and no targeted goal either; language learning becomes a part of their lives.
The work is based on the voice narration of two learners from the Japanese class in the communities who continuously learned for a decade. Through conversation, they detailed their experience of learning Japanese. From the intersection and combination of the narrators’ enunciative quality and soundlines, along with songs, nursery rhymes and the ongoing ambient sound, creating slow vibrations of emotional connections behind learning Japanese, as well as the drive to continuous learning and starkly different psychological supports.
The work was commissioned for “Marks of Old Friends: Cultivation of the Elderly”, an exhibition curated by Yang Chia-Hsuan in the temporal exhibition for the silver-haired in the frame of the “Xinying Art Festival”.
無齡：培
聲音、複合空間裝置 ｜ 25分鐘48秒、依空間調整 ｜ 2020
語言，代表著一個文化群體的歷史演進，更是一個展現思維的工具。而外國語⾔的學習，呼應嬰兒牙牙學語的歷程與⼈類融入群體生活的經歷，象徵「新人生」與「新連結」的啟程與建構。
日語，是目前國人學習第二外國語言的主要選擇之一，其文字與華語有相似之處之外，也因地緣、歷史與文化上的連結，多了一份可及感。少了其他外國語言的陌生，它間接成為銀齡人士的社區外語課的長青課程。我在社區發展協會所開設的「日語班」、「⽇語歌唱班」課堂現場的觀察、參與中，感覺到⼀種「培」的⽣命技術養成，以及一種「精神」的展現和流傳。
社會人口邁向高齡化的情境之下，學界因修正與調整長者在社會架構中的參與核心與應應方向，創造出許多不少凝聚社會情境且具推廣意義的概念名詞，如「銀齡」、「樂齡」或「無齡」...等。其中無論是「樂齡」或較近出現的「無齡」，所意涵的狀態和素養，涉及了心理和精神層面的支持系統，小至個人、大到文化的群體。而在宇宙、自然的運行中，生與滅的發生有其物理的必然。人類生命週期的每一個階段，都是獨特且充滿著持續發展的無限可能。生命各階段的際遇因動力的流轉從「無」到「有」，如何放掉「有」，再進入「無」？此驅動展現的是屬於不同個體和文化的精神與心念。課堂中的技術練習者正確呈現了社會期許下的「樂齡」學習，也體現了「無齡」的精神，更展現屬於⾃⼰獨⼀無⼆的⽣命姿態。沒有功利、標的性的目的，語言學習成為了生活的一部分。
作品透過已持續十年的社區日語班兩位學習長者的口述聲音為主調，在言談中娓娓道出學習日語的經過。口述者的語感和聲線、歌曲、童謠與行進的環境音交錯組合，緩緩振盪出學習日語這件事背後的情感連結，以及持續學習的動力和截然不同的心理支持。
此作品為「新營藝術季」銀齡特展中「老友記：長者養成須知」展覽之委託製作。
策展人：楊佳璇