About the form
For this unfamiliar creative form, I frequently return to problems concerning contemporary performing arts, such as how to define what this is? It appears to be everything, yet that also implies nothing.
Henry suggests that I first determine where the essential points are, and then decide how I want to extend this vision to another link. For example, the fieldwork is more like the form of art therapy, but the content of the workshop is more akin to feminist action. Perhaps we can have a clearer sequence idea of the creative if we know which direction we should extend in.
I am eager to see spontaneous, breakthrough, and female-specific physical action during the workshop, but afterward, I can sense that the participants regard the workshop as a course and cannot let go of the state of "to complete the instruction," but this type of interaction is not what I am looking for. As a result, we are seeking a more mutual aid collaboration approach in the next step.
（Last meeting, With facilitator Henry and translator Vivien.）
About the body exercises in the project
As far as we are cultivated by dance background, the body is our closest and most immediate companion in touching the mind and thinking. In the project, we go through a series of exercises to develop intimacy with the body, feelings, and imagination brought by the conscious body, and then the relationship with the body of others, the wearing relationship with the object, and the imitation of the multi-sex body. Allowing the body to bear the body appearances of diverse ethnic groups to open up the imagination of empathy is useful, but in the face of bodies with diverse training backgrounds, perhaps we should establish a more precise system to encourage it.
(Workshop record. Image provider: Thinkers' Studio、Photographer:邱条影室/邱垂仁)
Fieldwork recording: what kind of material are we looking for?
To edit the film's sound, we repeatedly replayed the fieldwork's dialogue recordings to find the material. The material chosen exemplifies the project's fundamental theme, which is the feminine perspective and thought process.
Under their growing environment, these displays of reflections and viewpoints are discouraged. I discovered that respondents frequently try to use the socially defined "neutral" to characterize or use supplementary comments to modify their most intuitive opinions. Those thoughts that are unique to them are frequently hidden in the most inconspicuous of places. We must discover it through the whole day of conversation, as well as the emotional ups and downs and physical performance of the interviewees. How to let go of our political standpoint to choose, and how to consider the relationship between these words and the audience.
Looking back, the importance of fieldwork in the project is to reshape the gender situation at the time via the respondents' various individual diversity, life experiences, and coping choices, so that we are not merely stereotyped about the female group in early Taiwanese society. Critical and negative conjecture is relatively easy, but when it comes to different generations' female identities, the emphasis is not on the conclusion, but on the integration of each other's experience, and then finding a unique context and broader Taiwanese female voice.
(Workshop record.Photographer: Kuan)
Regarding the future relationship with the object
In the project, the objects included fieldwork respondents and workshop participants. In the facilitated meeting, Henry mentioned the retention of our future relationship with the object more than once. Our procedure is urgent this time, and the number of interviews is modest, but we hope that the door of communication will not be closed when the residence ends. The project's two focal points are community and intergenerational communication. They must continue to operate, possibly by forming friendships to keep an eye on each other, in the hope of breaking through the wall constructed by algorithms in the network generation.
what’ next?
How to reflect, converge, and record different female thinking through artistic practice?
Writing/Data Integration: Kuan
Special Thanks :
NG, CHI-WAI、Vinzent、Wu, Tai-Yun、Ray Tsou、Wang, Chih-Shen、Chen Piling、Wang, Ying-Chieh、Vivien、Huang, Yu-Min、Chien, Shih-Han、Yilin Tsai、Grace Wang、Les Petites Choses Production and all of you who are willing to participate in fieldwork and workshops.
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關於創作形式
對於這個自己不熟悉的創作形式常常回到對於當代表演藝術的提問，關於怎麼去界定這個是什麼?好像什麼都可以是，但什麼都是也就什麼都不是。
Henry的建議是，重點擺在哪決定我要怎麼將此視野延伸至另外一個環節。例如田調環節是較偏向於藝術治療的形式，但工作坊內容是偏向女性主義行動，我們要從哪一個方向去延伸，或許就可以有比清楚的創作脈絡。
在工作坊裡我渴望看到一種自發性、突破性，且專屬於女性的身體行動，但在工作坊後我可以感覺到參與者將工作坊視為課程，無法放下"要完成指令"的狀態，但這樣的互動關係並不是我想要的。所以在下一階段裡， 要找的或許是一種更互助性的合作模式。
關於計畫中的身體練習
就舞蹈背景養成的我們來說，身體是我們觸及思考最親密也最直接的夥伴。在計劃裡我們透過練習建立與身體的親密感、意識身體所帶來的感受與想像，再進到與他人身體的關係、物件與身體的穿戴關係、多元性別身體的揣摩。讓身體去乘載不同族群的身體樣貌而開啟共感的想像固然是有效的，但在面對訓練背景相異的身體，或許更該有細緻的系統去推進。
田調錄音:我們在尋找的素材是什麼
為了剪輯影片的聲音，我們不斷的回放田調的對話錄音，從中找到素材，而對於素材的篩選顯示出了計畫一部分的核心，簡單來說，便是女性的見解與思考過程。
這些反思、立場的表述在他們的成長環境底下是不被鼓勵現身的，會發現受訪者通常盡力使用社會所定義的"中性"的去描述，或通過補述去修正自己最直覺的想法，那些專屬於她們個人獨到的思緒通常隱藏在很幽微的地方。我們必須通過整天的對話，加上對象情緒起伏和身體表現去發現他們，而怎麼放下自己的政治立場去選擇、要怎麼考慮到這些話語與受眾的關係，都在我們的考量之內。
回溯到田調在計劃的重要，在於透過受訪者不同的個體多元性、不同的生命經驗與應對的選擇來重塑當時的性別處境， 讓我們對於早期台灣社會的女性群象不只有"刻板印象"。批判、否定的思辨相對容易，但回到不同世代的女性認同，重點不在於定論，而是將彼此的經驗交融相扣，進而找到更為廣義、且脈絡獨特的台灣女性聲音。
關於與對象日後的關係存留
在計劃裡，對象包含田野調查受訪者和工作坊參與者，而在協作會議中，富有田野調查經驗的Henry不只一次提到我們與對象的關係留存。我們這次的進程急迫，訪談次數較少，但當然希望對話之門不要隨著駐村結束就此闔上。社群與世代溝通是計畫中的兩個關鍵，需要持續經營，或許就像交朋友一樣保持彼此關注，希望能越過在網路世代，因演算法而築起的牆。
下一步在哪?
如何透過藝術實踐去體現、匯流、記載不同的女性思考?
撰文:周寬柔
計畫特別感謝 :
吳志維、劉子齊、吳岱芸、鄒宗芮、王志慎、陳碧玲、王瑩潔、李芷蔚、 黃裕閔、簡詩翰、蔡亦晽、向鳴德、小事製作以及所有願意參與田調、工作坊的妳們。
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