Reconstructing Lost Identity

Abstract

Taiwan is an island that remains in a geopolitically absurd status due to its bizarre history; as a result, it has constantly strived to construct its identity in political confrontation. No spatial identity constructs itself, as space and identity are themselves constructed through a series of political and historical synthesis about and within a certain region, space, and place. In pluralistic immigrant societies like Taiwan, centuries of colonization have heavily influenced the way people identify themselves amid the chaotic concoction of colonial symbols within the city.This essay explores how a city or a place can be emancipated from the constraints of colonial legacies and move forward to develop its spatial identity by occupying the space through human activity. The research explores four different methodologies-- re-excavate, re-act, reverse, and reshape- applied to my selected projects investigating social-cultural processes related to urban spatiality. The four projects are distinct in location and scale, from urban to rural, from urban scale to object. However, they all explore how human activities reshape space over time and their role in urban identity construction.