2022

Installation, photographs, and Books
Materials: abandoned objects found in parks, artificial turf

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裝置、攝影照片、書

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I went to different parks in New York City and picked up abandoned objects that provided me with information about the city, helped me to imagine what the people of the neighborhood are like, and had an association with my personal experiences and cultural background. <Souvenirs> include a series of photos and texts as the titles and information of the images. The content of the images is artificial products, which were abandoned in New York City parks, on artificial turf. The texts below every image include the titles that reflect my perspectives and thoughts that were inspired by this trash and the dates and places where I found these objects. 

 

I was caught by surprise at the amount of trash on the streets when I first arrived in NYC. In the beginning, it was hard to accept the scenes and the smells the trash caused, but gradually I became used to it. When I return to New York City from other cities or countries and smell the odor of the city, I know that I am back. The city itself has a very unique scent. Thus, I think the street scene with trash is a kind of a feature of the city. 

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Choosing parks as the setting creates a contradictory contrast with the impression of trash. Parks are supposed to be comfortable, clean, and full of plants, but New York's parks, are also full of garbage. Parks are places where people frequently gather, and different parks have distinct characteristics due to the nearby neighborhoods. This not only reflects the diversity of New York's culture but also exposes social issues in America. For example, in parks near Chinatown, there are many discarded items with Asian characters or images. Meanwhile, in parks in middle-class and white-collar areas, you can frequently see abandoned tennis balls. Tennis is not only a leisure sport but also a toy for interacting with pets. Both tennis and pet ownership require a certain level of economic status to afford and enjoy.
 

Apart from regional characteristics, common traits in American culture can also be observed. For instance, in parks across various neighborhoods in New York, you can find discarded ketchup packets. These packets come from different stores but all sell ketchup, indicating a common fondness for liquid tomatoes among Americans.

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During the process of picking up these items, I often thought of my own experiences and cultural background. In two different parks, I found packaging for the Taiwanese snack, Want Want Senbei. To an average passerby, this might just seem like foreign snack trash, but for someone like me from Taiwan, it was a delightful and familiar surprise. Another serendipitous encounter was when I found a small piece of trash that looked like a drink seal. Upon closer inspection, I discovered that the expiration date on it was exactly my mother's birthday. Even though I was in a foreign environment, these small encounters connected to my hometown made me feel especially warm and nostalgic.

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Photographs present a colorful visual effect like a commercial advertisement to show the extreme contrast between the content and form of the image. The visuals of photography are bright and beautiful, but the content is worthless garbage. This contrast reflects the imagination of New York, a seemingly prosperous, modern, and glittering internationally famous city, but many social and environmental problems in the city are hard to see by outsiders, such as the gap between the rich and the poor, racial discrimination, the homeless problem, the rising crime rate, environmental health problems, and rampant drugs.

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《Souvenirs》包括一系列攝影和文字作為影像的訊息，藉由紐約公園裡的垃圾，了 解與發現紐約文化的特殊性與多元性、美國社會潛藏的問題和隱憂、以及以我作為外來者的角度 發現文化之間的差異性。每張攝影都有搭配的照片標題和文字，標題反映了我受到這些廢棄物所啟發的觀點和想法，文字為我發現這些物品的日期和地點。

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當我第一次到達紐約市時，我對街道上的垃圾數量感到驚訝。一開始，我很難接受垃圾帶來的場 景和氣味，逐漸習慣後，每當我從其他城市或國家回到紐約市，聞到城市的氣味時，我就知道我 回來了。這座城市的獨特氣味和景象給我很深的印象，我認為有垃圾的街景是紐約市的一大特 色，因此開始關注城市中的廢棄物。

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我到紐約市的各個公園撿拾廢棄的物品(垃圾)，這些物品為我提供了有關這座城市的資訊、幫 助我想像和發現生活在不同區域的人們的習慣和特質，並與我的個人經歷和文化背景進行聯想。 選擇公園場域是與垃圾的印象作爲一個矛盾的對比，公園應該是一個舒適、乾淨、充滿植物的場 域，但在紐約的公園中，卻也充滿垃圾，而公園是人們頻繁活動的場所，不同的公園因為鄰近的 區域有不同的特色，除了反映出紐約文化的多元性，像是在中國城附近的公園中，有許多帶有亞洲文字或圖像的廢棄物​；也揭露了美國社會的問題，例如：在中產和白領階級區域的公園裡，可以頻繁地看到地上有被遺留的網球，網球除了是作為一種休閒運動，也是和寵物互動的玩具，而網球運動和飼養寵物都是必須有一定經濟水準，才能擁有和享受的活動。除了地域性的特色，也能夠發覺美國文化中共同的特點，像是在紐約各個區域的公園中，都能夠撿拾到番茄醬的包裝， 它們來自不同的店家，但都同樣出售番茄醬，美國人們似乎熱愛的液態的番茄。

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在撿拾的過程中，也多次讓我聯想到個人自身的經驗和文化背景。我在兩個不同的公園中，都撿到臺灣零食旺旺仙貝的包裝袋子，對一般路人來說可能只是一個異國零食的垃圾，但對於來自台灣的我，更是感到格外的驚喜與熟悉。與自身連結的另一個巧遇，是我撿到一個像是飲料封口的小垃圾， 仔細看了看之後，發現上面的有效日期剛好是我媽媽的生日。雖然處在異國的環境中，這些與家 鄉連結的小小偶遇都讓我倍感溫馨。

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攝影呈現出像是商業廣告般色彩繽紛的視覺效果，是為了呈現影像內容與形式上的極端反差，視覺上光鮮亮麗，但內容卻是毫無價值的垃圾，藉此反映紐約的形象，看似繁華、現代、閃閃發光 的國際聞名都市，卻存在許多社會環境的問題是外人難以看見的，像是貧富差距極大、種族歧 視、流浪漢問題、犯罪率不斷升高、環境衛生問題、毒品猖獗等等，或許這些問題也是文化多元 之下的結果。

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