Wang Hong-Kai

Music While We Work

The video Music While We Work is the first part of a long-term research project artist Wang Hong-Kai started in 2010. The project revolves around and beyond the history of sugar in the small town Huwei in central Taiwan (the artist’s hometown). The town was nicknamed as the “Capital of Sugar” during the Japanese colonial ruling (1895-1945) of Taiwan. Yet, the history of this small town and its pivotal role in the deadly Taiwanese anti-colonial resistance movement is not known or talked about. In 1925, a gathering of sugar planters led up to the historical yet today largely unknown revolt, even unknown among the workers’ generations after the revolt. For this work she assembled a group of retired workers from a Taiwanese sugar refinery in the small industrial town of her childhood (first or second generations of workers after the 1925 revolt). She and her collaborator, the political activist and composer Chen Bo-Wei (Taiwanese, born 1971), led a series of recording workshops for the retirees and their spouses. They then returned to the factory, where Wang asked them to “paint a world composed by their listening.” The video installation is both an account of their collective learning process and the resulting compositions.