10 Nov In/Out of Place: Contemporary Landscape Nomadism of Wu Chi-tao and Yao Jui-chung
Professor, National Taiwan Normal University Department of Fine Arts
The nature of space may have diametrically opposed meanings for different people based on differences in their environment, ideas, beliefs, or even race, class and gender. It can be, at one and the same time, both ‘material’ or ‘psychological’; ‘social’ or ‘personal’; ‘open’ or ‘hidden’; ‘cultural’ or ‘primitive’, and so on. This complex phenomenon of diverse coexistence or mutual disagreement on meaning or connotation, does not mean that there is an ambiguity about natural space which is intrinsically difficult or impossible to define, but rather that it is a reflection of the attributes summed up by the perspective of the person giving the definition, or a demonstration of differences in the subjective position. In other words, the position and standpoint of the person offering the definition determines the possible meaning of the natural space, and lends it its individuality and particularity.
In Social Justice and the City (1973), the Marxist geographer, David Harvey, argued that space has three attributes: ‘absolute’, ‘relative’ and ‘relational’. Which attributes a space has is ‘ depending on the circumstances ‘. It may be one of the three, or all of them. He says: The question “what is space?” is therefore replaced by the question “how is it that different human practices create and make use of distinctive conceptualizations of space?” The property relationship, for example, creates absolute spaces within which monopoly control can operate. The movement of people, goods, services and information takes place in a relative space because it takes money, time, energy, and the like, to overcome the friction of distance. Parcels of land also capture benefits because they contain relationships with other parcels; the forces of demographic, market and retail potential are teal enough within an urban system and an important aspect of human social practice.
How different spatial concepts are utilized and created is closely related to human social practices. However, what kind of textual segmentation exists between natural, spatial or local differences? Moreover, the home acts as a social practice. As far as the individual unit is concerned, it means a base for birth and growth. Yet for the community as a whole, it’s a unit from which a country or a nation is composed. Whether we take the former or the latter, both are types of structured geographical knowledge products. British geographer Mike Crang analyzed ancient heroic epics, believing that many have a standardized geographical narrative structure in which there is a forced departure, a period of anguish and suffering, and a vengeful homecoming. He says that, “One of the standard geographies in a text, exemplified in travel stories, is the creation of a home – be it lost, or returned to.” (Cultural Geography, 1998)
In our modern industrial society, travel and relocation have become inescapable parts of life. However, regardless of the frequency, there is a certain kind of ‘going out’ (leaving, or loss) and ‘coming in’ (returning, or gain) reflected in the cyclic law of the actions taken to establish temporary or permanent residence. With the constant differentiation of society, people in modern society are frequently forced to move away from their home towns to unfamiliar locations. In the process of seeking a material or spiritual settling down, acting as ‘home’ in the concept of a travel or migration space, it is inevitable that a balance must be sought between the three-dimensional relationships of absolute, relative and relational, in order to complete the ‘creation’ of the feeling of home.
The difference between place and space is that the latter is more abstract, yet in definition they both need each other. Chinese-American geographer Yi-Fu Tuan proposes that the difference between them is that, “From the security and stability of place we are aware of the openness, freedom and threat of space and vice versa. Furthermore, if we think of space as that which allows movement, then place is pause; each pause in movement makes it possible for location to be transformed into place.” (1997). Integrating this viewpoint, we can learn that in the creation of home there is a dialectical relationship between ‘going out’ and ‘coming in’, which symbolizes the transition from ‘openness, freedom and threat’ to ‘security and stability’ and vice versa.
The landscape imagery in the recent works of Wu Chi-tao and Yao Jui-chung involves a dialectical relationship between place and space – security and threat, stability and freedom, movement and pause, and this has become one of the core dialogues of their works. The two contrast markedly in terms of their use of media and in their brushwork. This is especially true with respect to their skills of bestowing inner qualities upon their landscapes/natural sceneries, which are fundamentally different. In this, Wu Chi-tao uses the barren illusion of uninhabited islands, to satirize a ‘place’ of final escape, shelter, and hiding (that is, in the absence of a home) for humankind after exhausting natural resources, utilizing the highlighting of natural ‘space’ to powerfully convey a wordless state of silence after the suffering of a catastrophe. Yao Jui-chung uses similarly meticulous depictions and tight, compact compositions, to construct mountain hideaways, and recreational resorts, brimming with human character, just like sturdy fortresses lived in for generations. These are taken to be both the ‘place’ of home and representations of the wilderness of natural ‘space’, resulting in a symbolization of localized space. We can see from this the milestones of nomadism the two artists have passed in their different standardizations of contemporary landscapes.
From the perspective of the above-mentioned three attributes of space, Wu Chi-tao’s landscapes have a ‘going out’, but no ‘coming in’, expressing the possibility of seeking and rebuilding an absolute home while having not yet arrived there, and still being in a relative relationship of harsh environmental change. Here, withering and rotten undergrowth is transformed into the first blossoming of pines, contrasting strong strokes of color melt into light tinges and traces, embodying this kind of hope to re-create a metaphor. Relative to this, Yao Jui-chung’s landscapes have no ‘going out’ but do have a ‘coming in’, symbolizing the end of movement and a state of pause. Through the joy of memory, absolute landscapes are created, expressing such eternal visual imagery as evergreen mountains, evergreen trees, ever-flowing water, and people in states of constant happiness. Brilliant colors such as lustrous golds and jades deepen the inner implication of home as an ever-happy land and a hidden valley.
For the two of them, the actions of entry or exit from a ‘place’, represent, respectively, different milestones and results of a nomadic or pastoral existence. That is to say, in the roaming or cultivation of landscapes, defining the real relationship between humankind and natural space has now become the most indispensable condition for shaping ‘local concepts’, and ‘local identities’. Perhaps, just like the heroic epics of the past, the intersection of these two person’s nomadic or pastoral landscapes lies in the so-called ‘creation of home’. But that’s also where the differences between them lie. Which is to say, leaving and returning have always been two sides of the same concept of home, which cannot be stripped away. The significance emphasized by the former is ‘social’, ‘open’ and ‘psychological’; for the latter it is ‘personal’, ‘hidden’ and ‘material’. Their main positions and objective requirements are different, and there is also a slight difference in terms of their creation and use of space. For these reasons, landscape becomes a memory, a description and a ‘localization’ of the special qualities of social practices.