Preliminary Concept: For this project, I will recruit a group of extras to appear together beneath several high-rise buildings in Taipei that I’ve selected, and photograph them. The idea is to stage an “event” in which all the residents of those buildings, for some unspecified reason or incident, rush down to the ground floor simultaneously. By orchestrating this momentary occurrence, I aim to create a fleeting, collective urban memory. The questions I wish to explore include:

1. How to awaken people’s curiosity about their fellow residents.

2. How to engineer an unexpected encounter.

3. How to evoke the atmosphere of an emergency—something about to happen whose outcome remains unseen in the photographs.

4. How to reconvene those who have once lived in the building (human or otherwise).

Location:

• Around Taipei Main Station

• A high-rise currently under construction

• (Other sites still under consideration)

Methodology: This will be a staged shoot. I will invite extras from various fields, give each of them specific instructions in advance, have them appear on-site, and then disperse once the scene has been captured.

Supplementary Background 1: The “4-11 Encirclement of the Zhongzheng First Precinct” refers to a protest that took place in Zhongzheng District, Taipei. In the early hours of April 11, 2014, the Taipei City Police Department’s Zhongzheng First Precinct forcibly evicted members of the Coalition for Referendum Protecting Taiwan—who had been camped in front of the Legislative Yuan—and announced that any future gathering by the coalition would not be authorized. That evening, demonstrators surrounded the precinct in response. Notably, during the 5-20 Farmers’ Movement in 1988, the then-City Precinct (today’s Zhongzheng First Precinct) had also been encircled by protesters. (From Wiki 411包圍中正第一分局事件: https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/411包圍中正第一分局事件)

Supplementary Background 2: Under Assembly and Parade Act, in a democracy country, citizens may apply to hold gatherings or marches, and authorities generally cannot refuse an application based on its political content. However, if two groups with opposing viewpoints apply for the same date, the government often grants permission to the assembly whose stance more closely aligns with its own.

Supplementary Background 3: I dreamed that I returned to my old studio—one I had rented and never felt attached to—which had since been demolished. In the dream, it had become a kind of spiritual time chamber. New tenants were now using the space, and I regretted not having kept it. In the dream, it looked completely different, and I find myself wondering: what does it look like now?