"Gathering the Distance", Solo Exhibition
個展：一座遠方
Dates: November 16, 2024 – December 8, 2024
撿拾作為過去以來的創作起點，對拾得物觀察、探究並與之進行想像，而此次展覽《一座遠方》容納了這幾年來的收集與成果，由在北海岸撿拾到了來自遠方的小石頭出發，串起了對於不同地方的探索與想像。展覽由三件著要作品建構而成。分別是《另一座口》、《海平面上的虛線》以及《新島再製》。
2021年在日本火山島鏈上一座名為福德岡之場的海底火山再次爆發，大量的火山浮石碎屑在海上堆積，逐漸形成一座新的島嶼，而這座新島的誕生引起了對於是否增加領土和領海面積的討論。在台灣也能撿拾到這些來自遠方的火山產物，浮石小島隨著時間的推移，逐漸變得支離破碎，乘著海浪、風漂移至各處。
此展覽中《新島再製》是結合過去兩件作品，由好像「撿拾到一塊他方的領土」的想像出發，透過撿拾、燒製轉換物質的狀態等行動，連結自身製陶的經驗，試圖還原亦或是擬造像是這樣無法親臨現場的自然龐大事件，延伸了對無法觸及的生命經驗所產生的一種想像。由於火山石的成分與陶藝釉藥相似，火山熔岩的噴發溫度與燒製陶瓷的溫度接近，兩者皆源於地球的內在力量，並在不同條件下產生多樣的產物，模擬火山高溫下熔岩的質地與它的色彩，想像火山就像一座巨大窯爐，而石頭們都是外殼、是大地的釉。
作品《另一座口》與《海平面上的虛線》是相較於先前被動撿拾外來碎片的行為，更主動地前往未曾踏足的遠方，像是今年走訪了幾座位於義大利的火山，《另一座口》試圖透過影像、聲音裝置傳遞異地的感官經驗。《海平面上的虛線》則是利用了駐地交流的機會，探索了同樣的地理位置鄰近火山島鏈旁的沖繩，了解他們是如何運用被視為天災的火山產物，也與當地的工藝師合作製作了部分作品。展覽的空間裝置試圖呈現這些來自不同遠方帶回的物件，在串連和比對這些被帶回的物件時，突然感受到，它們不再那麼遙遠了。
"Gathering the Distance"
Dates: November 16, 2024 – December 8, 2024
“Gathering the Distance” continues the creative trajectory I have developed over the past two years, evolving from my works “New Island” (2022) and “New Island II” (2023). In 2021, the eruption of the Fukutoku-Okanoba submarine volcano in Japan produced a large amount of volcanic pumice, which gradually formed a new island in the sea. The birth of this island sparked widespread discussion in Japanese media and among the public, with some even speculating about its potential to expand territorial and maritime boundaries. This event piqued my interest, as these volcanic products from afar could also be collected along the coast of Taiwan. Over time, the pumice island gradually fragmented, with pieces being scattered to distant shores by waves and wind. In my previous works “New Island” and “New Island II,” I collected volcanic pumice along the northern coast of Taiwan, researching its formation, composition, and drifting routes. This exploration evolved into a series of material investigations. Starting from the notion of “picking up a piece of foreign territory,” I aimed, through creative acts, to reconstruct or simulate a grand natural event that I could not witness firsthand. By gathering pumice, I transformed its state, extending the imagination toward experiences of life that remain unreachable. The current exhibition, “Gathering the Distance,” connects past works with new experiences of going to Italy and Okinawa. Compared to my earlier, more passive collection of fragments from afar, this time I actively ventured into places I had never been before. Ceramic and clay sculpture have long been my primary creative techniques, and the natural materials I collect often merge with the pottery-making process. The composition of volcanic rocks is similar to ceramic glazes, and the temperatures at which lava erupts are close to those used in firing ceramics. Both are derived from the Earth’s internal forces, producing diverse materials under varying conditions. The exhibition space will feature installations that weave together these distant stones—some gathered from afar, some brought back from distant places—through video and fired sculptures. As I cataloged and compared these stones, I suddenly realized: they no longer feel so distant.
台新藝論紛紛Artalks文章
一座浮島的誕生與消失－－沈庭華個展《一座遠方》：https://talks.taishinart.org.tw/talks/84/38918
《另一座口》（Another Entrance）
單頻錄像、聲音裝置
Single-channel video, sound installation
4'07''
海拔三千公尺的埃特納（Etna）火山上，灰矇矇一片的火山石大地一望無際，讓人一時之間不知身在何處，彷彿來到世界盡頭。凝視著奄奄一息的火山口，忍不住想像著它究竟通往哪個深處，繼續往下又從哪一個口冒出？火山的難以親近總是令人有多重想像，而不可抵達之處更添異空間的幻想。阿塔納修斯‧基歇爾 (Athanasius Kircher) 在1664出版的「地下世界」書中，以插圖展現了他對地底的想像，每個火山口都有藏著自己的火苗，而火苗延伸下是互相串連的，並蔓延了整個地球，他描述道：『整個地球並非固體，而是處處縫隙、空蕩的房間和隱藏的洞穴』。而法國作家儒勒·凡爾納於1864年出版的「地心歷險記」把火山作為作為入口，也同樣描繪著可以穿越地心的想像，他們由冰島進入，順著熔岩通道直至地心，再由西西里島附近的斯特龍博利火山（Stromboli）回到了地表上。這些關於地心的想像牽引著我的探索。2024年的6月，我來到義大利西西里島的埃特納火山，隨後前往伊奧利亞群島尋找火山的蹤跡。這趟旅程中，我意外發現，這裡正是《地心歷險記》中幻想出口的所在地。我希望將這些在遠方的身體與視覺經驗帶回，與過去接觸的事物共振，產生迴響。
這件《另一座口》是一件融合影像與聲音的裝置作品，試圖重現我在義大利攀登火山時的身體記憶。影像前方設置了一座可供坐臥的傾斜木作結構，觀者在其上可感受到自底部傳來的微弱震動，宛如置身火山口邊緣。耳邊傳來風聲與石塊滾落的聲響，身體則接收來自地底的頻率。聲音裝置與木作結構共同構成一個感官場域，使震動由下而上傳導至身體，營造出臨場的沉浸感。影像從火山遠景緩慢推進至一顆石頭，再進一步聚焦其表面的裂紋與質地，如同在顯微鏡與望遠鏡之間切換，穿梭於地景的宏觀與微觀尺度。
At three thousand meters above sea level, the volcanic landscape of Mount Etna stretches endlessly in shades of grey — a disorienting vastness that makes one lose all sense of place, as if standing at the edge of the world. Gazing into a barely breathing crater, one cannot help but wonder where it leads, how deep it goes, and from which other opening it might eventually emerge. The volcano's inapproachability has always invited layers of imagination, and the unreachable only deepens the fantasy of an otherworldly space.
In his 1664 publication Mundus Subterraneus, Athanasius Kircher illustrated his vision of the earth's interior — each volcanic crater harboring its own flame, all connected beneath the surface, spreading throughout the entire globe. He wrote that the earth is not solid, but riddled with fissures, hollow chambers, and hidden caves. French author Jules Verne, in his 1864 novel Journey to the Center of the Earth, likewise used a volcano as an entry point, imagining a passage through the earth's core — his characters descending through Iceland, traveling along lava tunnels to the very center of the earth, and finally resurfacing through Stromboli, a volcano near Sicily. These visions of the earth's interior have long drawn me into my own exploration.
In June 2024, I traveled to Mount Etna in Sicily, Italy, and then set out across the Aeolian Islands in search of further volcanic traces. It was during this journey that I discovered, unexpectedly, that I was standing in the very place Verne had imagined as the exit point in his novel. I hoped to carry these physical and visual experiences from afar back with me — to let them resonate with what I had encountered before, and to set something reverberating.
Another Entrance is an installation that merges image and sound, seeking to reconstruct the bodily memory of climbing a volcano in Italy. In front of the screen, an angled wooden structure is placed for viewers to sit or lie upon. From beneath it, faint vibrations travel upward through the body, as though one were perched at the rim of a crater. The sound of wind and rolling stones fills the ears, while frequencies from deep underground are absorbed through the body. Together, the sound installation and wooden structure form a sensory field in which vibration travels from below upward, creating an immersive sense of physical presence. The footage moves slowly from a distant view of the volcano toward a single stone, then closer still — into the cracks and textures of its surface — shifting between the scale of a telescope and a microscope, traversing the landscape at once in its vastness and its intimacy.
《海平面上的虛線》(Dotted Line on the Sea)
單頻道錄像
Single-channel video
01′30″
2024
大量浮石在海上聚集時稱之為「浮石筏」（Pumice raft），甚至可形成衛星圖上可見的小島，並隨洋流逐漸移動。浮石筏宛如海上的浮島，忽大忽小，並承載著生命，而這幾年來海底火山的躁動，已經為地球孕育出好幾座新的島，但隨著浪、風的力量，四散各處，藉著這樣飄忽不定的概念，以曾經組成過新島嶼的浮石作為主要原料，再製而成玻璃浮球，以它們作為拍攝對象，而在畫面裡，浮球們因為浪的推移，在海面上不停改變著自身的形狀。
When large quantities of pumice gather on the ocean's surface, the formation is known as a "pumice raft" — capable of growing large enough to appear as a small island in satellite imagery, drifting gradually along ocean currents. Like floating islands at sea, pumice rafts shift in size and carry life within them. In recent years, the restlessness of underwater volcanoes has given birth to several new islands on earth — yet under the force of waves and wind, they scatter and disperse across the ocean.
Drawing on this idea of restless, elusive movement, the work takes pumice — once part of a newly formed island — as its primary material, remaking it into glass floating spheres. These spheres become the subjects of the film. On screen, pushed and pulled by the motion of the waves, the spheres continuously change their formation on the surface of the sea.
《新島再製》(Recreating the New Island)
玻璃、LED、陶瓷、火山浮石
Glass, LED, ceramics, volcanic pumice
尺寸依現場而定
2024
靈感來自日本福德岡之場海底火山爆發形成的浮石小島。以想像撿拾到他國領土為出發點，研究浮石成分，發現其中含有大量玻璃質，與陶瓷釉料和玻璃製作過程相似。通過將浮石作為材料，製作成磁磚和玻璃浮球等，並透過影像裝置呈現技術媒介與真實的遙遠，試圖拼湊遙不可及的自然脈動，呈現對自然力量的探索和想像。
2021年，日本福德岡之場海底火山半年內多次爆發，產生大量浮石，從海底堆積到海平面，成為小島，被稱為新島。日本新聞討論這座島嶼的誕生，是否可以為日本增加領土與領海面積。浮石因高溫高壓變化而輕盈，隨著海浪侵蝕和拍打，小島越來越小，浮石漂流至四處，包括台灣沿海。我在北海岸撿拾到擱淺在海灘上的浮石，想像撿拾這些浮石如同撿到一小塊日本領土。以「好像撿到一塊他方的領土」為起點，收集了浮石形成過程、成分及漂流路徑等資料。以無法親臨現場的方式試圖觸及火山爆發、飄移、地殼變動等巨大現象，通過撿拾和轉換拾得物的狀態，延伸因無法觸及而產生的想像。
研究發現浮石成分內含大量玻璃質，如二氧化矽，與陶藝釉藥成分相近，也是製作玻璃的主要成分之一。作品中運用浮石作為釉的材質，燒製成磁磚。這些飄來的礦物是火山的單位、碎屑，透過高溫燒製和玻璃融合，與地球生成與破壞的變化相關，複雜的物理和化學變化在地球中轉換樣貌。浮石與玻璃球的融合，講述滾動漂移的樣貌。地板上的磁磚像土地尺寸的單位，也像拼圖板塊，散落在地上的玻璃浮球內的色彩和材質是浮石敲碎和高溫燒製後的顏色，它們漂浮移動如同海上的浮球，像小座標。
The work draws its inspiration from the pumice island formed by the underwater eruption of Japan's Fukutoku-Okanoba volcano. Taking as its starting point the imagination of having picked up a fragment of another country's territory, the artist researched the composition of pumice and discovered that it contains a high proportion of silica glass — a material closely related to ceramic glaze and the glassmaking process. By working with pumice as a primary material to produce tiles and glass floating spheres, and presenting them through video installation, the work navigates the distance between technological mediation and physical reality, attempting to piece together the unreachable pulse of nature and to give form to an exploration of — and imagination toward — natural forces.
In 2021, the Fukutoku-Okanoba underwater volcano erupted multiple times within half a year, generating vast quantities of pumice that accumulated from the seafloor up to the ocean's surface, forming a small island known as the "new island." Its emergence sparked discussion in Japanese media about whether the island could expand Japan's territorial and maritime boundaries. Lightened by extreme heat and pressure, the pumice was gradually worn down and broken apart by waves, causing the island to shrink as the stones drifted in all directions — eventually reaching the shores of Taiwan. The artist collected pumice that had washed ashore along Taiwan's north coast, and found in the act of gathering these stones an imaginative resonance: as though picking up a small piece of Japanese territory. Beginning from this notion of "finding a fragment of another land," research was gathered on the formation process, material composition, and drifting paths of pumice. Unable to be present at the site of eruption, the work attempts to reach toward vast phenomena — volcanic explosion, oceanic drift, tectonic shift — through the act of collecting and transforming found objects, extending the imagination that grows from what cannot be directly touched.
Research revealed that pumice contains a high proportion of glassy silica, a composition similar to ceramic glaze and one of the primary components in glassmaking. In the work, pumice is used as a glaze material and fired into ceramic tiles. These drifting mineral fragments are units and debris of a volcano — through high-temperature firing and fusion with glass, they become entangled with the earth's cycles of creation and destruction, their form continuously transformed through complex physical and chemical changes. The combination of pumice and glass sphere speaks to a state of rolling and drifting. The tiles on the floor function as units measuring the scale of land, like puzzle pieces or tectonic plates scattered across the ground. Inside the glass spheres, the colors and textures are those of pumice after it has been crushed and fired at high temperatures — floating and shifting like buoys on the sea, like small coordinates adrift.
