- ART Hong Kong|Chen Chieh-jen
- 2011|05.24 - 05.29
- Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre 3E05
Empire’s Borders II– Western Enterprises, Inc.
2010
35mmtransferred to Blu-ray Disc, black and white, sound, three-channel video installation
(70 minutes, 5 second single-channel video, plus 5 minutes and 44 seconds of double-channel video)
Introduction
After withdrawing military aid for Kuomintang forces during the Chinese Civil War, the United States Government later renewed support for the Kuomintang government relocated in Taiwan when the Korean War erupted in 1950 as part of their anti-communist containment policy. The CIA established an operation known as Western Enterprises in cooperation with the Kuomintang in 1951 to train the local Anti-Communist National Salvation Army (NSA) for a surprise attack on Mainland China. These actions, along with other projects, transformed Taiwan into a base for anti-communist operations in East Asia.
Although the CIA used the name Western Enterprises from only 1951 to 1955, the United States continued operations in Taiwan under the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty from 1954 to 1979. Western Enterprises, a highly symbolicname, not only clearly stated U.S. intentions to continue with its strategy of imperial domination in Taiwan, but also announced a series of evolving goals: ruthless suppression of leftist factions and dissidents, as well as thorough brainwashing of the Taiwanese people through support of the Kuomintang dictatorship. In this way, Taiwan was to be refashioned as a close U.S. ally and an anti-communist stronghold, and along with different phases in the growth of capitalism, drew Taiwan into the stratified administrative structure of its global capitalist empire.
The inspiration for Chen Chieh-jen's Empire's Borders II – Western Enterprises, Inc. came from items left by Chen's father, a former NSA soldier, when he passed away. These items included a partially fictitious autobiography, a list of soldiers whose assault ship were sunk by Chinese People’s Liberation Army and lost their lives at sea during a surprise NSA attack on mainland China, a photo album with its pictures removed and an old military uniform.
In an artist’s statement Chen wrote, “My elder brother told me that Father had said those soldiers lost at sea were the sons of poor people just like he was. At the time, being a soldier was the only option, and they didn't even receive a salary. My father also had said the autobiography was fake; it was just for showing to the authorities and to prove his loyalty. The pictures that had been in the album were burned by my father long ago, but I remember seeing them as a child. There were many pictures of Father with other NSA soldiers being trained by Western Enterprises.” (1)
What did Chen's father, who grew up in a poor fishing village, think they were defending in that attack on the Mainland? Did he know there was a crackdown on leftist factions and dissidents in Taiwan at the time? How did he view the later Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty, the United States’ so-called economic aid to Taiwan and the cultural cold war which was fought in Taiwan for so many years? What kind of consecutive relation exists between these developments and current global neoliberalism?
Like many other men of his time, Chen Chieh-jen's father chose to remain silent about his experiences and choices under martial law surveillance during the Cold War period. Their collective silence, however, has left a vast historical voidand formed a black hole in collective spirit, making contemporary Taiwansociety ahistorical and de-contextualized.
In the film, a man re-examines an empty photo album that cannot serve as witness to any historical scene, a fictional autobiography that cannot present any actual experience, a real list of soldiers lost at sea that can never be cited, and a uniform that remains after his father’s physical presence has gone, all on the anniversary of his father’s death. Through the smoke of the burningspirit money spiraling to heaven, the man puts on his father’s uniform and imagines a journey back to the Western Enterprises.
Among the traces left by American military advisers and a chemical factory established during the era of American economic aid, the Son, along with returning NSA soldier in search of recordsof himself, victims of the white terrorwho were not able to leave the building and without records of themselves(2) and unemployed factory workers meet successivelyin different rooms of a labyrinthine building that seems to be the ruins of Western Enterprises.
The purpose of this video was not, however, to recreate the empirical historical record of Western Enterprises. According to Chen Chieh-jen, it is more important to to create the possibility of self healing and self reconstruction for those in Taiwanese society today who were brainwashed or had their histories and collective memories erased by Western Enterprises. Chen believes this is achieved by deploying re-imaging, re-writing and re-embodying strategies, staring from personal and community memories and links between history and contemporary life.
Chen Chieh-jen once wrote in an artist statement, “I made this film to create an opportunity for self healing and drive off ghosts of Western Enterprises that reside in that field of erased collective memories. The film also re-writes the memories of a de-contextualized society, and reunites with the peoplewhoweresilenced.”
With this video, Chen Chieh-jen hopes to establish a “home”for the future in Taiwan, rather than journey into the past.
- Soldiers of the NSA who are still alive today, tried for years to get the Kuomintang to compensate them for the five years of salary that they never received. The Ministry of National Defence still has not settled their case due to incomplete records.
- Since the abrogation of martial law in 1987, many significant records regarding the victims of white terror still have not been released.