Guantian · Balin
10 artworks・5 spots
Other
BL-1拔林工作站
Nourishing Love: The Salted Zeng-wen River
HSU Yi-tzu
許怡慈
"I treat my body as a gathering bag, bottling the people, events, crops, and landscapes I encounter into jars preserved with salt and drying techniques. This practice grew out of my footsteps during my residency in Balin—part field survey, part physical farming, and part creative work journal. Through these sensory media, I thread time through the marks of labor, revealing a authentic way of living alongside the earth."
About the Artist
Born in Donggang, Pingtung, Hsu currently lives in Xinhua, Tainan. Having studied at the Graduate Institute of Plastic Arts at Tainan National University of the Arts, she has recently taken up residencies in the middle reaches of the Zeng-wen River Basin and along the Route 20 foothills. Treating "memory gathering" as her creative path, she uses her physical senses as field survey instruments. Through preservation and fermented foods, she translates memories of agricultural labor and taste into sensory food maps, weaving a nourishing space where contemporary art co-exists with daily life between flowing rivers and fertile soil.
BL-2搭配活動限定開放
That Field in Balin
HSU Yi-tzu x Green so goodteam ( WU Jian-yi x CHEN Hshing-chi x CHENG Ying-tze x TSAI Han-cheng)
許怡慈×好草隊（吳建億×陳杏綺×鄭穎澤×蔡漢正）
"That Field in Balin" was once an old asparagus patch owned by Grandma Lai-chi along the Zeng-wen River, serving as the starting point for my reflections on human-land healing. We preserved the wild weeds while planting green manure alongside native seeds and plants saved by local elders, allowing crops, wild flora, insects, and animals to co-exist freely as the soil slowly awakens. I have always imagined people stepping barefoot into the mud, breathing in the quiet pulse of nature amidst lush greenery, where an earth table is not merely built upon the land, but grows directly from the soil to share food. This field is in no rush to harvest; instead, through the changing river, seasons, and time, gathering, planting, harvesting, and tasting once again become a slow, authentic rhythm of life that nourishes all.
About the Artist
Formed by partners dedicated to environmental sustainability and land stewardship. Taking its name from the resilient vitality of grassroots plants, the team symbolizes a deep, grounded commitment to action. Through cross-disciplinary collaboration and local engagement, they translate environmental care into concrete sustainable practices, fostering harmony between humanity and nature.
BL-3拔林工作站
流域風土採集器
CHEN Jun-xian
陳俊憲
As hearth fires rise and water sounds flow, the collector stands quietly within the settlement, listening to the voices of residents. Seemingly ordinary home-cooked dishes carry family memories, local flavors, and lived wisdom passed down through generations. Even a single bowl of water caltrop soup takes on distinct flavors shaped by different households and life experiences. Amidst daily routines woven from water and fire, this collector gathers memories of the watershed’s terroir.
About the Artist
Chen Jun-xian Based in Jiangjun, Tainan, Chen Jun-xian has extensive experience in community co-creation and artistic collaboration. Inspired by fine observations of nature and daily life, his recent practice centers on kinetic wind sculptures, combining hand-forged aesthetics with mechanical motion to craft distinctive metal sculptures. Representative works include Souls in Communion at the Taiwan Indigenous Peoples Cultural Park, Towards the Ten Directions at the Kaohsiung International Steel Sculpture Festival, and Blessings from the Afar at the Makotaay Eco Art Village.
BL-4拔林工作站
Door of Balin
CHEN Jun-xian
陳俊憲
Shaped by water, the thick, fertile topsoil (thôo-bah) rises like an island, nourished by subterranean streams to support the intertwined growth of all living things. Early pioneers arriving here saw wild guava bushes (pa-lá) thriving across the land. Choosing to settle and taking root here, they opened an enduring dialogue with the earth.
About the Artist
Chen Jun-xian Based in Jiangjun, Tainan, Chen Jun-xian has extensive experience in community co-creation and artistic collaboration. Inspired by fine observations of nature and daily life, his recent practice centers on kinetic wind sculptures, combining hand-forged aesthetics with mechanical motion to craft distinctive metal sculptures. Representative works include Souls in Communion at the Taiwan Indigenous Peoples Cultural Park, Towards the Ten Directions at the Kaohsiung International Steel Sculpture Festival, and Blessings from the Afar at the Makotaay Eco Art Village.
BL-5拔林工作站對面的牆
Agricultural Water and the Pheasant-tailed Jacana
CHEN Wei-hsuan x CHEN Jun-xian
陳瑋軒×陳俊憲
When a typhoon knocked down the wall opposite the Balin Workstation, this artwork was created to capture the essence of rural Balin. An agricultural water pump, riddled with holes at its base, draws water onto lush green fields, while a water valve "controller" stands in the middle, staring at its uncontrolled counterpart across the way. As water flows into the right-side fields, local farmers launch cherry bomb fireworks to scare away birds. In response, the Guantian bird community dispatches their star representative—a Pheasant-tailed Jacana shaped like a water caltrop. Shod in iron hooves and armed with a fireworks bow, the bird steps up to battle humanity. It takes careful aim to strike back, only to accidentally shoot another Jacana perched on an iron cycad. Solving conflicts through human logic is bound to end in a comedic tragedy; as we take in the piece, we are left to wonder how the next powerful typhoon will answer back...
About the Artist
CHEN Wei-hsuan ：A barefoot, clay-dusted craftsman who previously worked in community building and film art direction. Creating ceramics through intense physical labor, he translates the living earth, the joy and sorrow of farm labor, the pride of craftsmanship, and reflections on social justice into raw, satirical ceramic sculptures.
Chen Jun-xian: Based in Jiangjun, Tainan, Chen Jun-xian has extensive experience in community co-creation and artistic collaboration. Inspired by fine observations of nature and daily life, his recent practice centers on kinetic wind sculptures, combining hand-forged aesthetics with mechanical motion to craft distinctive metal sculptures. Representative works include Souls in Communion at the Taiwan Indigenous Peoples Cultural Park, Towards the Ten Directions at the Kaohsiung International Steel Sculpture Festival, and Blessings from the Afar at the Makotaay Eco Art Village.
BL-6種書店
Plant a Bookstore
GONG Yih-jau x HUNG Shu-ching x The Team at Plant a Bookstore
龔義昭×洪淑青×種書店店長群
“Plant a Bookstore” is a non-profit watershed-based experimental bookstore established in 2023. It serves as an educational base for the “Isonomia and Art Practice” course at Tainan University of the Arts, as well as a space for community dialogue. Continuing the advocacy for the “legal personhood of rivers” initiated by the 2022 Mattauw Earth Art Festival, the bookstore aims to become a “watershed information center” through thematic book donations.Over four generations, its members have grown to 42 people. The team voluntarily takes turns on Saturday and Sunday afternoons to tend the bookstore and welcome visitors.
About the Artist
- *店長群｜許巧欣、彭懷澤、徐晨毓、吳翊禎、林甜白、馮顯雅、林尹
BL-7川文山
"World Without Conflict" Circular Theater
WU Sih-fong x CHANG Iris Chun-tzu x CHEN Siao-chi
吳思鋒×張君慈×陳孝齊
Beginning with a farewell letter, a journey unfolds in search of the future. The mountain landscape, the therapeutic rhythm of walking, and the nearby railway tracks and firing range all become catalysts for imagining the far-off beyond in a personal sensory trek activated by listening. This is not a retelling of local history, but an invitation to discover resonance with distant worlds through slow, deliberate walking in nature—listening to narratives and soundscapes while observing every leaf and tree. The alienation and trauma of intimate relationships, alongside the militarization of energy and materials, gradually turn into narrative text and soundscapes that seep into this walking circuit. Chuanwen Mountain temporarily becomes a sanctuary in a troubled world; yet the sounds of suffering do not disappear. Their faint, intermittent flickers ignite our imagination to begin anew, allowing us to walk a little farther than where we stand, just as mountains and trees have endured far longer than humanity.
Series works
- 《無爭世界》環行劇場
- 《當可追溯性逐漸消失》展演現場
- 如果我有山的耳朵？――想像聆聽與行走譜記工作坊
About the Artist
Wu Sih-Fong focuses on small theater practices and the re-reading of their genealogies, non-metropolitan theatrical creation and operations, theater ecology and institutionalization, as well as criticism and media perspectives. Chang Chun-Tzu uses sound as clay, shaping it through painting, poetry, installation, field recordings, and improvisational performances to explore bodily perception and streams of consciousness between the audible and inaudible within space. Chen Siao-Chi’s work investigates bodily mutations within spectatorized contexts, prompting reflection on how the individual navigates self-positioning and resistance within power structures and cultural production.
BL-7-1川文山
"When Traceability Fades Away" Exhibition & Performance Site
CHEN Siao-chi x CHANG Iris Chun-tzu x WU Sih-fong
陳孝齊×張君慈×吳思鋒
Inspired by the site of Chuanwen Mountain, this performance generates divergent imagery through sound, language, and physical action in real-time presence, attempting to spark shared empathy between the environment and life.
About the Artist
BL-7-2川文山
What is it like to be an ear of a mountain? – Imaginary Listening and Walking Score Workshop
CHANG Iris Chun-tzu x CHEN Siao-chi
張君慈×陳孝齊
If I had the ears of a mountain, what would the world I hear sound like? Through listening exercises, physical movement practice, and sound-walk scoring, we imagine the perception of the mountain to explore the co-presence of body and environment.
About the Artist
BL-8𥴊仔店
田地――關係空間
TSAI Han-cheng
蔡漢正
This artwork captures agricultural life along the river beaches of Balin on the Zeng-wen River. It subtly reveals the emotional shifts across time and space experienced by local inhabitants within their environment. The surface of the land offers a lens to observe human lives, socio-economic structures, natural forces, and traces of political power. Focusing on farmland utilization, this photographic series uses visual representation to unleash a reflective image power regarding human presence.
About the Artist
Working primarily with photography, Tsai’s recent focus centers on the relationship between humanity and the environment, expressed largely through landscape forms. His creative process continuously inquires into how images function as a medium of communication. Emphasizing that an image is not a unidirectional gaze by the photographer, his work highlights the presence of a relational bond between human beings and things, engaging contemporary social discourse through these relational lenses. Beyond artistic practice, he is actively interested in the history and theoretical study of Taiwanese landscape photography.
2026.9.5 – 12.6 | Tainan
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