The 2023 Green Island Human Rights Art Festival – Listening to the Overtones of Fissures is themed on the seemingly passive, gentle gesture of “listening,” hoping to embrace different political, economic and systemic experiences of individuals. These experiences have created wounds, which are like “fissures” that have separated people. At the same time, “fissure” also denotes incongruences and divergencies. Like barriers or differences between individuals and the society produced by the White Terror, these incongruences and divergencies are largely overlooked and await our re-understanding as life progresses. “Overtones” refers to the voices or sounds constantly echoing or emitting from the fissures. An “overtone” is a different frequency that shares the same basis with a fundamental tone; and in this case, it becomes a metaphor for the outcast existences that have been ignored by mainstream opinions.
Launched in 2019, the Green Island Human Rights Art Festival ushers in its 4th edition this year, and has been given a one-year preparation period for the first time, which allows the curatorial team to thoroughly plan the festival, form an academic consulting group, organize co-learning talks and workshops, visit political victims and their offsprings for field research, as well as co-develop and co-create projects with related personnel. Dealing with the complex history and site of the White Terror, the mission of contemporary art creation and curating is not to represent history or recount the facts. Instead, the objective is to employ artists’ viewpoints, chosen media and creative approaches to transform and interpret their observations, understandings and discoveries of historical materials to create a new pathway that enables the audience to approach the difficult history.
