A fourth-year PhD student at the University of Brighton, Zara Arshad recently embarked on her 3-month-long Artist Residency at Pier-2 Art Center in Kaohsiung, Taiwan with her working partner Yaloo, an artist based out of Los Angeles and Seoul. Together as studio Geofictions they are working on a project that explores histories of landscape manipulation, or terraforming, in Kaohsiung, and how such acts might have impacted natural ecosystems. Although the duo succeeded with their Residency application in late 2019, the pandemic had other plans and so in May 2024, both of them finally initiated this long overdue journey.

The project that Geofictions is currently developing originally sought to explore the city of Kaohsiung across different temporal frames, and later transformed into something different altogether. Below are some excerpts from an informal conversation between Zara and CDH Social Media Assistant, Pragya Sharma, about how Geofictions’ collaborative research process has unfolded so far:

Z: Through our project, which departs from the Kaohsiung context, we are playing with concepts around temporal frames, world-building, and the pluriverse. Since starting my PhD at the University of Brighton, I have developed a particular interest in the legacies of Japanese colonialism. Though my doctoral research focuses specifically on the Korean context, I have been learning about how such colonial legacies intersect other regions and territories, such as Taiwan. This was kind of the starting point for our work as Geofictions. I was aware, for example, that the Japanese colonial administration had undertaken large-scale dredging and land reclamation operations to develop Kaohsiung harbour into a modernised port. We wanted to question how this manipulation of the land impacted local ecosystems, particularly marine life. Since such studies have not yet been done (and this data is, therefore, not readily available), we are playing with different forms of evidence, from archival (historical) materials to contemporary natural specimens, and even speculative art.

Port of Kaohsiung captured by Zara, on her flight into the city on 1 May 2024.

 

As much as researching an idea is important, the right methods and approaches are key to bringing a project to life. Applying a combination of historical and transdisciplinary research methods with speculative processes allows Zara and Yaloo to imagine alternative futures that challenge the contemporary present.

Z: In the first few weeks, we were exploring different investigative methods and developing our methodology accordingly. Archival materials, such as (Japanese colonial) maps and photographs from the late 19th to the early-to-mid 20th centuries, including those depicting Kaohsiung’s topography and its harbour and waterways, have been central to the research. In addition, we have been visiting local museums to help us contextualise our subject matter(s) further. We have also been involved in embodied research, a process that includes observations, experiencing and walking the streets, and taking photographs. I have been quite intrigued with the tiled surfaces of Taiwan’s urban facades, another legacy of Japanese colonialism according to work by Lawrence Zi-Qiao Yang, though this angle has taken a back seat in the project now. Instead, we have been collaborating with local marine scientists, alongside referring to theories, like those about the pluriverse, to create a relevant frame for the project.

 

Historical materials at Mu Tsan’s antique store. A local artist, Tsan has been collecting historical material related to Kaohsiung and beyond for about 20 years now.

A project becomes more evolved by fostering collaborations and partnerships with key stakeholders, at times transcending disciplines. Geofictions’ project focuses heavily on these transdisciplinary aspects.

Z: We have been in conversation with local marine researchers, such as Yuan-Pin Chang and Tzu-Hsuan Tu at National Sun Yat-sen University, and Li-Chin Chou from the National Academy of Marine Research (NAMR). We have been speaking with them about their recent conservation initiatives, and learning more about the impact climate change today has had on certain marine ecosystems. Colleagues from NAMR, for instance, have been cultivating a giant seaweed species to use as a carbon sink as a means of mitigating the effects of climate change.

 

Coral samples on display at the National Sun Yat-sen University (NSYSU), College of Marine Sciences.

 

Any transdisciplinary project is brought to fruition by the collective synergies of the team members. In this case, Zara found the perfect partner in Yaloo, a new-media artist who likes experimenting with new technologies, creating video installations and helps materialises Zara’s ideas into visuals.

 Z: My partner, Yaloo, does a lot of video and projection work. When I first met her in 2019, she was doing a project on seaweed and exploring aspects of her (Korean) cultural heritage through this lens. I thought it would be interesting to create a dialogue with her creative approach and my own research process. So, I look at archival sources, digest them and interpret them for Yaloo, and then she uses this material to inform the creation of her artworks. As different as both of us are in the methods that we use, our interests do overlap. For instance, when we went to the Kaohsiung Museum of History, we both took photographs of the same displays, such as a case showcasing industrial waste (like circuit boards and keyboards) extracted from a local river.

Yaloo documenting seaweed at the beach in front of National Sun Yat-sen University (NSYSU).

 

Zara and Yaloo’s current project has roots in the book ‘Geofictions: Work in Progress’, a series of visual essays that were compiled in the summer of 2020 during the pandemic lockdown. While envisioning the end outcomes for their current project, they can see a meld of different ideas manifesting as a final visual exploration.

Z: I quite like the idea of presenting an archaeological landscape for the final exhibition. Complementing the historical and scientific objects that we will loan from our collaborators, Yaloo will create a series of new speculative artworks. She has been 3D-scanning things she sees on the streets – different things that captivate her. These will form the basis of new artworks. Last month, we also conducted a workshop with 150 schoolchildren, asking them to imagine Kaohsiung’s marine creatures of the future. The students first drew their creations together in a small group before modelling their ideas in clay. These models were then 3D-scanned and adapted by Yaloo, to be presented in our final exhibition as fictional species. These will be presented in the final show as part of a sculptural installation inspired by the industrial aesthetic of Kaohsiung.

Zara and Yaloo’s residency will conclude at the end of July 2024. It will culminate with a final exhibition that will take place between 18 and 26 July at Pier-2 Art Center.

Learn more about Zara’s work at https://zara-arshad.com and Yaloo’s at https://www.yaloopop.com.