Text and interview by Feng-yi Chu

Julian Thomas mentioned the concept of “phenomenological archaeology” in his book Time, Culture and Identity: An Interpretive Archaeology, arguing that contemporary interpretation of archaeological sites and artifacts is largely based on modern people’s own culture, experience, and worldview, and may thus have a large gap from those of the ancients. “Archaeology” is not built upon verification and re-presentation of ancient society from linear time perception. In fact, strict division among past, present, and future does not exist; we can only grasp and express the present moment. In the dual solo exhibition of Chiang Kai-Chun and Jazz Szu-Ying Chen at the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Archeological Resonance, the two artists adopt very different artistic vocabularies, forms, and materials to co-present this non-linear archaeological imagination. Kai-Chun’s creation leans more towards conventional archaeology, but instead of figuratively replicating archaeological sites or artifacts, it is more about expressing the artist’s own emotions and ideas through connection, application, and conversion of symbols on them. Jazz’s work, on the other hand, almost abandons the materiality in archaeology, focusing on digging and documenting the shared core spirit deep within human souls by means of images and, in turn, spiritual archaeology. Here, the interview below with both artists reveals their respective inspiration and concept for creation, while tapping into how they interpret “archaeology” from their own perspectives before converting and applying it to this current practice of artistic creation.

Feng-yi:
First of all, I’d like to have you two talk about how the collaboration of this dual solo exhibition came about.
 
Kai-Chun:
It was me inviting Jazz to join this dual solo exhibition. Although Jazz’s style of art is totally different from mine, our topics and elements actually overlap in an interesting way. When I work on topics of prehistoric archaeology, I usually look for elements and inspirations from tombs. It doesn’t have to be grave goods; it can also be everyday necessities of the ancients. Jazz’s past works also involved a lot of death and skulls related elements. We were wondering what kind of spark there would be if we were to juxtapose and contrast these two types of works that seem very different. Also, she happens to like the color black, and I like white, so we make this distinction between “day” and “night” in the design of our exhibition hall: Jazz’s area is darker, and mine is brighter. With the concept of “day and night,” we want to present a cyclic, archaeological temporal relation related to the rising and setting of the sun.

Jazz:
I always love to listen to stories, interested in how people interpret and deal with death. Some of them resort to spiritual beliefs, some to religions, and others to mysterious rituals and ceremonies. For example, there were many séances in the 19^th century. I’m very interested in this kind of culture and documentation, including how people treated and tackled corpses, as well as rituals and ceremonies related to death. In fact, digging into these things is also a form of archaeology.
 
Feng-yi:
The theme of this dual solo exhibition is obviously “archaeology.” There are actually numerous contemporary artworks themed around this concept both domestically and internationally. I’d like to ask Kai-Chun—where would you position your work in this context and how would you describe its distinctiveness?
 
Kai-Chun:
My artmaking is rooted in my family background. I used to live in Cyakang in Fengtian, Hualien when I was little. It’s an archaeological site recognized by Hualien County; there are a lot of jade scraps and semi-finished products on the river terrace by the river. My grandfather was a sharecropper. He’d go to the riverside to pick rocks afterwork, and I’d play with all those rocks he collected in the yard. Back then, grandpa would teach me how to appreciate rocks, too, telling me there were waterfalls, clouds or something in those rocks. When I grew older, grandpa started to tell me how valuable nephrites were, but I was like, “Aren’t they just rocks? How valuable can they be?” Only after I actually began to study them did I realize—my goodness—nephrites are so closely related to Taiwan’s history. And this is also the topic of my series of works on the archaeology of nephrites of the Beinan Culture in recent years. Such life experience is also the reason why all the materials of my creation are drawn from Taiwan’s archaeological artifacts. Of course, my own sentiment is also partially involved—I want to let more people know about Taiwan’s archaeological culture through my artmaking.
        People only started to pay gradually more attention to archaeology in Taiwan in the past twenty years. Initiatives like the establishment of “Nanke,” the Museum of Archaeology, Tainan Branch of National Museum of Prehistory, and archives of books and data related to archaeological research only came about during the past two decades. It’s probably why my creation is somewhat different from other archaeology-themed artworks. Among those works, some may be more of an extension to the Huaxia (華夏) style and use more materials like bronze objects from the Shang and the Zhou dynasties, while others are more figurative in forms or even direct simulations of archaeological sites.

Feng-yi:
        It’s very interesting, especially the comparison between figurative and non-figurative approaches. These two approaches seem to represent two different attitudes and ways of imagination about archaeology. One is linear and scientific—the excavation, analysis, annotation, categorization, documentation, understanding, argumentation, grasping, owning, and re-presentation of the mysterious and the unknown involve a human-centric or even “faith can move mountains” sense of control and conquest. The other is non-linear and artistic or even mysticist—it focuses on the connection between the mysterious and the unknown, as well as imagination, conversion, and presentation of them. These two types of “archaeology” carry different meanings in modern society, which also implies a state where linear and non-linear imaginations co-exist and where multiple time perceptions overlap.
 
Kai-Chun:
        Yes, the form of my creation is not that figurative. It’s also partially because most archaeological artifacts in Taiwan themselves are already non-figurative vessels and ornaments that were converted into art and presented as symbols. Take a piece of jade that looks like a frog for example; we would call it a “frog-shaped jade ornament,” but is it really a frog? There’s no documentation that can prove it. Who knows? It could be something else. What’s fun—or super mysterious—about archaeology is that some stuff can be verbalized, but others cannot. And for creators, that allows for space for imagination and creation.

Feng-yi:
        It seems that we can see symbols as patterns created as a result of human’s interaction with the mysterious realm, and later, different cultural groups add different meanings to these symbols or modify their meanings according to their respective cultural systems. I’d like to have you elaborate more on your imagination and creation involved in the exhibited works.
 
Kai-Chun:
        This time, the order of how we arrange the exhibition works somewhat echoes with the symbolic interaction between human and the mysterious realm that you mentioned. In the very front of the exhibition hall, we set up the video installation titled Hands (2016–2024), which talks about how human beings use hands to create objects in the realm between Heaven and Earth. And then, there are the Fragmentation of Historical Perspectives series (2022) and Timeless Existence (2024), showing the fact that we have found abstract elements in this world before carving it with our own hands into shapes, such as jade jue earrings and zoo-anthropomorphic jade ornaments. If we take a closer look, we’d notice that these shapes are all pretty balanced, so they’re a very sacred and ritualistic sort of symbolic existence. Harmonious Mysterious Connection (2024) is the most balanced piece among all my works; it’s to imagine the mysterious ritual of symbol making.
        The Waterway of Cyakang River (2024) builds upon the universal connection between human and the mysterious mentioned above and converts it into a localized, modern interpretation of what a specific cultural group has experienced. Archaeologists have found jade objects of numerous different shapes around this river; I rearranged them and infused them with elements borrowed from architecture and maps to create an ancient scene. How did the actual site look back then? We can actually only imagine it; there’s no way to restore it. This piece especially has many colors; I’d usually come up with a color chart for all the rocks I use in each work, and this one probably has more than 30 colors in total. Taiwan’s rocks are basically black, white, gray, and a bit of green. Rocks of the other colors in this work come from other countries, so this is also another type of localization in terms of materiality in my artmaking.

Feng-yi:
        Jazz, how would you interpret the presentation of your exhibited works under the theme of archaeology?
 
Jazz:
        Even though I’m curious about religions and rituals in the past, these activities were all organic and culturally specific, unable to be documented in ancient times when written words did not exist. These could only be transmitted orally, not to mention those taking place in a time when oral language had not even emerged. In terms of these, really, we could only imagine. Also, we’d usually imagine that these discovered cultures were the sole, mainstream ones back in the time. But personally, I’m very into subcultures, so I started to ponder: contrary to the conventional term “levels of culture” in archaeology, can we also imagine a system of “levels of subculture”? What kinds of vessels and ornaments would the ancients who belonged to a subculture leave behind? Or even, how would people arrange and present their skeletons? This is the main question I raised in the Alternative Ancestry series (2024).
        Matriarchal Progression (2024) is another series about imagination and transformation. I got its inspiration when I saw a picture of a “net sinker” at Nanke. It reminded me that in human’s cultural evolution, there’s actually always a certain group of people having power over another group. An obvious example is gender. Modern women are usually subject to pressure originated from gender differences in the entire society, and we’d also see a lot of elder people who talk in a very patriarchal way. To me, that net there presented a very strong image—the net was thrown open but froze mid-air; and the red rock next to it was an agate stone, symbolizing a blood drop, as well as women.
 
Feng-yi:
        Your work uses a lot of dark elements, and the presentation pretty much leans towards the Gothic style. I’m curious whether we’re able to dig out some sort of universal spirituality shared by all mankind through this type of dark or grotesque themes by means of spiritual archaeology. Maybe you could first talk about how you started to grow interest in these topics.
 
Jazz:
        I studied Art and Science for my Master’s degree, and I chose to specialize in anthropotomy. My advisor Eleanor Crook specializes in medical anatomy and human waxwork. I’ve actually always been drawn to “grotesque art” and also wanted to figure out why I’d be interested in those patterns, so I started to read about some theories. I think the reason why I’m attracted to grotesque art is that it brings