Before the Storm

This work is inspired by the artist’s historical research conducted over the past year at the Jan van Eyck Academie in the Netherlands. In 1653, Hendrick Hamel, a clerk at the Dutch East India Company (VOC), embarked from Batavia (now Jakarta, Indonesia) in the Dutch East Indies archipelago to Taiwan aboard the ship De Sperwer, along with officials and council members en route to assume the governorship of Formosa’s Tayouan (present-day Tainan, Taiwan). The ship arrived in Taiwan on July 16th. On July 30, 1653, De Sperwer, having set sail from Tayouan towards the Dutch trading post in Dejima, Nagasaki, Japan, encountered a storm and sank after nightfall on August 15th. Hendrick Hamel and the surviving crew members accidentally landed on what was then known as Quelpaert Island (present-day Jeju Island) and were forced to stay there for 13 years before escaping. Through his journal and writings, Hamel inadvertently became the first to reveal to the Western world the then-secluded state of the Kingdom of Joseon (Korea), earning him the title of “The Dutch Marco Polo.” By exploring water, humidity, weather, and climate as “wet” elemental media, the artist further attempts to interweave sensory and physical experiences into the methods of understanding and narrating cultural archives, seeking a fluid textual experience.

CHANG Chih-chung reflects on the current terrestrial human civilization through the ocean. Using water as a medium to permeate the inner spirit and the external material, he embodies the transitional, fluid, and anti-subjective, unsettling state of his motherland Taiwan under the subtropical monsoon climate. His works often revolve around narrative texts or narrators as the core, skillfully integrating various forms and media with a keen craftsmanship. Focusing on rapidly changing environments such as ships, islands, and harbors, he explores the universal experience and grey areas of the tug-of-war between people, civilization, and nature.