date of issue：2021-02-26
After living in the urban jungle, yearning to return home. And wanting to bring back the forests, rivers, and streams that once thrived there.
You left the tribal community as a child, and now you’re an adulating the magical world of the big city. But the magic has long worn off Suddenly a pandemic is consuming the world. You yearn to return home.
But home has been changed. The clear rivers have muddied and dried. The wondrous mountains you once gazed at are now barren.
The lush ramie plantations where you used to play hide-and-seek with the other kids, have been replaced by the synthetic fabrics you now hold.
These are the recollections of a child, of home.
Yet a new story is just beginning. Returning, with the experience of living out in the wide world, you must now revisit those memories of your beloved tribal lands, of your culture.
A calling, come home, child. Bring back ramie. And bring back the rivers and mountains.
First Exhibition: “Thinking of Plant Transforming Fiber”
“A modern woman sees a piece of linen, but the medieval woman saw through it to the flax fields…”- Dorothy Hartley, “The Land of England”
A girl returns to her homeland. She scatters ramie seeds, and in doing so plants the hopes and dreams of her whole community.
She uses her bare hands to prepare the soil. Then she patiently waits for the seeds to develop, for the cultivation of a new ramie field, and for the plants to transform into stalks full of precious fibers. She takes the fibers, processes them into yarn by hand, dyes them with mountain river water, and day by day weaves a new era for her homeland.
She says: “This great river, the Da’an River, the giver of life. I remember, in the summer, how fast the wild lily flowers used to burst into bloom!”
The girl puts down her handful of yarn, and gazes at the mountain river. She reminisces about the summer, the river of life, the lily flowers. Now, the river is a muddy shadow of its past. She declares: “I will bring life back to this river.”
The girl in this story, the girl who brought ramie fields back to her homeland, the girl who brings life to the river…that girl is Yuma Taru.
“Thinking of Plant Transforming Fiber” Exhibition
Describing how Yuma Taru rediscovered ramie fiber/yarn fabric-making, how she brought this artistry back to life, and how she gave her ancestral tribal lands a renaissance. On a broader scale, the impact this has on Taiwan’s aboriginal societies at large, and their ramie weaving and tapestry economy.
“River Elegy” Exhibition
Yuma Taru leads us into the glorious past of the Da’an River, through its destruction, to its healing and the reappearance of crystal clear reflections on its surface. She imparts the history of the Atayal people, and leads us to the embrace of nature’s ancient purity.