After the rain, a few raindrops clang onto the power cable. Pulled by gravity, they glided and glittered against the colourless sky.
Two flame trees stood tall outside Kinma Military Hostel. A Taiwanese friend once told us: flame trees are trees of goodbye. What was it like to say goodbye here? The swaying leaves murmured, inaudibly in the wind. We listened attentively, only to find it impossible to fully grasp the reverberations in this place.
“We are not fixated at Kinma Miltary Hostel,” a former officer said, in remembrance of his days here, “It was a transit point.”
Moving forward, it was a threshold one has crossed.
We try to capture illuminating moments amidst the colourless flow of time. “Once upon a time,” one of our interviewees noted, “Some safeguarded this place in such a way.” In this very room where soldiers reported for duty, Crossing pays tribute to those who contributed to history. The past shapes the present. Let us contemplate these distant voyages, and reflect on what is immediately ours.
Crossing I
Stephanie Cheung | Kingsley Ng
Text installation + illuminated time capsule for visitors’ participation
Crossing II
Kingsley Ng
Contemplative space: Water droplets, light, sounds of Kaohsiung Harbour
Crossing is a two-part multimedia installation. Taking the history of Kinma Military Hostel as its point of departure, it approaches time as a continuum. The first part is a time capsule: extracts from interviews with Kinma veterans are etched on transparent “timepieces”. Visitors can hold them in their hands, and reconstruct what this place represents for individuals, a nation and at time. A contemplative space awaits visitors in the second part. As sounds of Kaohsiung Harbour reverberate, specks of light glide across the darkness. Concluding the experience, we invite visitors to reflect on the crossing that they are going through at this very moment. These micro histories will continue to grow in time.
Crossing, ALIEN Art Centre © ALIEN Art
Crossing, ALIEN Art Centre © ALIEN Art
Crossing, ALIEN Art Centre © ALIEN Art
Crossing, ALIEN Art Centre © ALIEN Art
Crossing, ALIEN Art Centre © ALIEN Art Crossing I,Text installation/illuminated time capsule for visitors’ participation. © ALIEN Art