Symbiosis
Trans/Voices Project — Music Scenes, Lecture Concerts and Exchanges of Indonesian Migrant Workers in Taiwan
2022
2022.05- 2022.11
Continuing the fieldwork of Music Collection of Indonesian Migrant Workers & Scene Report in Taiwan from 2021, the project collaborated with migrant musicians and grassroots organizations to conduct themed lecture concerts and workshops between migrant musicians and local musicians. The aim is to deepen the discussion of Indonesian music and its relation to life in Taiwan and transmit the knowledge of Indonesian music for the Taiwanese community.
The project held three lecture concerts in Taichung, Tainan, and Kaohsiung: Senandung Asmara, Noisy Uncles, and Tembang Pantura, respectively. The Tafalong Songs Meetup workshop was also organized in Hualien. In addition to searching for foreign ports of call in the folk tunes of the Javan coastline, the stories and songs exchanged between migrant workers and indigenous peoples also created a dialogue across borders, ethnic groups, and generations. Following the 2021 publication Voices in Motion: Music Collection of Indonesian Migrant Workers & Scene Report in Taiwan, which included 64 songs written by Indonesian migrant workers, the project continued to collect another 42 new songs this year. Observers and writers are invited to come explore heretofore unexplored music scenes.
Trans/Voices Project
Trans/Voices Project is a socially-based art project focusing on the artistic experiences of migration and labor issues, especially about indonesian migrant workers in Taiwan. While they struggle to meet their basic economic, social, and cultural needs, the project participants want to study their immigration journeys, hard labors, resolute resistance, and cultural re-creation in the host country.
Wu Ting-Kuan
Working as a cultural worker interested in Indonesian migrants, Wu Ting-Kuan conducts field research, builds archives, and initiates collaborative projects to find more about their arts and creations. While pursuing these intellectual explorations, Wu hopes to excavate the historical reality that remains hidden and then to develop new stories distinctively different from the mainstream.
Lan Yu-Chen
Lan Yu-Chen is a cultural worker and freelance writer. Lan has worked on several cross-cultural projects, including her anthropological research on urban art activism in Bandung, Indonesia. Her latest publication is about the oral traditions and songs of Pangcah, one of the indigenous peoples in Taiwan.
Sung Chia-Yu
Working as a writer, Sung Chia-Yu (Sally Sung) has published a few studies on migrants’ creative writing and cultural events in Taiwan and Singapore. Her writings can be found in the Reporter, the Fountain, and the Crown.
