Entangled Assembly

The Transformation is the projects work by Print & Carve Dept. Curator Gabriel Antonio, who research in history examines Taiwan’s Kaohsiung and the US-Mexico border’s export processing zones through a trans-Pacific lens. Both regions share histories of gender discrimination, economic dependency, and persistent pollution, inflicting ecological devastation upon border communities. The thesis examines the long-term history of the global factory’s rise, its political implications, and its role within the counter-revolutionary restructuring of capitalist production.

The exhibition was held in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, in 2024. During its development, I visited the US-Mexico border, studied the region’s natural geography, explored community efforts in Juárez to preserve local spaces, and investigated how Mexican border factories systematically regulate workers and local artist communities to control spatial interactions.

The exhibition was restaged at Kaohsiung Labour Museum in 2025. During this iteration, members of the Print & Carve Dept. shared border experiences in exhibition talks. Collaborating with Kaohsiung’s migrant worker communities and local cultural researchers, they visited neighborhoods and venues frequented by immigrate worker in Kaohsiung, jointly creating woodcut works through collaborative workshops.

This exhibition workshop collaborates with Southeast Asian cultural worker Wu Ting-kuan and the Stella Maris Kaohsiung, inviting migrant workers in Taiwan to participate.

Participants’ Background

Some of the workshop participants are fishing boat workers whose employers provide extremely poor living conditions, with inhumane treatment often occurring in their living and dining environments. Fishing workers are unable to use WiFi during their 10-month-long offshore fishing trips, making it difficult to maintain contact with their families. In the event of accidents or emergencies, they are unable to protect themselves. Other workers employed in factories also express their concerns about environmental pollution caused by their workplaces through their creations.

The event venue, the ‘Stella Maris International Service Center,’ was established in 1968 originally to serve American troops during the Vietnam War. With the increasing number of foreign workers in Taiwan, the need for care and assistance grew. In 1996, the centre dedicated itself to serving foreign workers and vulnerable foreign individuals, striving to assist foreign workers and seafarers, and fulfilling its religious duty to protect and care for them, providing them with a safe haven.

Prior to the event, artist Wu Ting-kuan, who has long been concerned about migrant workers in Kaohsiung, led the Print and crave dept. in visiting Indonesian shops, restaurants, and gathering places near Kaohsiung Station. Making BBQ as dinner with migrant workers together, and getting to know one another. Some migrant workers share the problems they encounter while working in Taiwan, including labour conditions, labour rights, and physical and mental health.

Through workshops, the Printmaking Department shared its past initiatives and provided printmaking instruction, with the theme of expressing self-labor rights and the life experiences behind labor, collaborating with migrant workers on printmaking creations.