The organizer invited me to give a speech based on the concept of “Indifference/Difference Inn.” Delivering a speech at a music festival is a challenge, but the concepts of “difference” and “access” make it an engaging one. Therefore, I conceptualize three spaces—childhood, Hualien, and the world of imagination—that serve as the “inns for soul” on my creative journey, bringing in symbolic objects that provide access to these spaces and inviting the band “Tsng-kha-lâng” for collaboration, in the aim of helping the audience who all have their differences to develop empathy within this space-time.
WU Ming-Yi is a writer, an artist, designer, photographer, literary professor, environmental activist. He is the author of the collections of essays Butterfly Chronicles, Butterfly Road, Water and Walker’s Blues, Above Flame; short story collections Today’s Public Holiday, Tiger Lord, The Magician on the Skywalk, The Land of Little Rain, novels The Route in the Dream, The Man with Compound Eyes, The Stolen Bicycle, The Sea Breeze Club, and a three volume collections of thesis “Liberating Nature through Writing Series.”
His works have been translated into over twenty languages. His novel, The Man with Compound Eyes, which won the Prix du livre insulaire for best work of fiction in French, and named on Berlin International Film Festival’s “Books at Berlinale.” The Magician on the Skywalk was short-listed for the Prix Emile Guimet de Litterature Asiattique, and The Stolen Bicycle long-listed for The Man Booker International Prize 2018.
TIUNN Ka-siông＆Tsng-kha-lâng’smusic incorporates traditional Beiguan and draws inspiration from the breath and tears shed by the land of Taiwan. At the heart of their creations are the stories of rural Taiwanese life, suffering souls, and wandering ghosts. Elements of spirits, bardos, ghosts, and deities are intricately woven into the narrative of their songs.