“Banana Taiwan Japan Philippines” a part of “South Plus: Constructing Historical Pluralism Ⅲ ─ Ocean in Us: Southern Visions of Women Artists” at Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts

“Banana Taiwan Japan Philippines” is an installation composed of air-dried banana peels that resembles the glorious banana market in Taiwanese during 1950~1970. It is the first banana work I created during my residency at the BankArt Studio NYK, Yokohama in Japan in 2013. 

I am interested in the topic of bananas because it is one of the most popular and most imported fruits in Japan. In the early years, Japan had imported bananas from Taiwan, but after the 1970s, it has been replaced by the Philippines. Bananas link my daily experience from Taiwan to Japan, but they also bring up complicated feeling when I see numerous similar kinds of bananas everywhere in Japan. These bananas come from different nations and represent different cultures and images of nations under the market economy.

This work consists of many bananas peels from the Philippines, nevertheless, it represents the previously bustling banana market of Taiwan. In addition to discussing the historical market relationship between Taiwan, Japan and the Philippines. I was also exploring the consumption and accumulation in daily life through my participation.

“Ocean in Us: Southern Visions of Women Artists” is a collaboration between Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts (KMFA), the National Gallery Singapore (the Gallery), and the Singapore Art Museum (SAM). It showcases women artists from Taiwan and Southeast Asia embodying diverse backgrounds and social contexts in the “South”. This exhibition makes visible and engages with urgent issues globally, including peripheral histories, gender, non-human ecologies, migration, invisible labour, materiality and trauma in art. The works in this exhibition embody stories of diversity, resilience and social engagement connected to the cultural and historical contexts of countries, regions and places. Collectively, the works present the perspectives of innovative women artists from Taiwan and the Southeast Asian region spanning the past three decades that have shaped contemporary art. They capture personal, familial, as well as transnational journeys that reveal the multifaceted and socially relevant landscape of contemporary womens’ artistic expressions. Meanwhile, the exhibition’s title, Ocean in Us, symbolizes a community that transcends ethnic and cultural differences, as well as crossing national boundaries through the fluidity, migration and movements of ideas, peoples and cultures propelled by oceanic and archipelagic ways of thinking, living and understanding the world. Ocean in Us also marks the 30th anniversary of KMFA and the third exhibition of the museum’s “Constructing Historical Pluralism” series – focused on presenting narratives from the peripheries.

Venue: Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, KMFA Gallery 301-305 
From October 5, 2024 till March 16, 2025
For more information: South Plus: Constructing Historical Pluralism Ⅲ─Ocean in Us: Southern Visions of Women Artists