Islands was performed in New Taipei City on the grounds of the New Taipei City Contemporary Art Museum as part of the museum’s opening event New Art Land. Islands was conceptualized around Schweder + Shelley’s interest in the ways knowledge is passed on from one group to another over time.
The environment developed to explore this process was a set of five “islands”, each a wooden platform raised two meters off the ground. Atop each island was a red wooden framework that became the starting point for an improvised house. After a few days, cladding materials were disassembled and used to make a bridge to the next island where a new house was improvised using the bridge materials. During the crossing, one performer left the performance off and another artist joined. At the end of two weeks nobody from the original group was among the group that finished the performance. In order of participation:
Alex Schweder
Ward Shelley
洪筱茜 Hung Hsiao-Chien
林子翔 Lin Tzu-Hsiang
徐莘 Hsin Shyu
蔡承翰 Eric Tsai
雷雅涵 Theresa Lei
王甯 Ning Wang