In the work Searching Center and Boundary (Taiwan), I started with the filming of the whole body, continued with the filming of the center and the five ends of the body (navel, head, left hand, right hand, left leg, and right leg), and ended with the filming of the center as well as the five ends of the island (the geographical center, the north end, the east end, the west end, and the south end). I zoomed in the images to search for the central point of my body and the island, the boundary between the body and the non-body, and the boundary between the island and the non-island. The initial idea of Searching Center and Boundary (Taiwan) began in Taiwan, but I did not have a car back then, so I could not go to the exact geographical center and the ends of Taiwan for photo-shooting. When I went to New York as a resident artist, I figured out that Manhattan Island had a perfect size for this project. I could either take public transportation or walk. Therefore, I finished the Manhattan version of Searching Center and Boundary first in the year of 2004. The Taiwan version was not completed until I returned to Taiwan in 2008.

Because of the vicissitudes of life and the variations of the island, the mission of Searching Center and Boundary is to emphasize the nihility of the Subject and the lost labor of searching for it. My personal life experiences and Taiwan’s identity crisis have encouraged me to further explore and reexamine the idea of “Subjectivity.” I believe that the crisis is not unique to Taiwan. As the land and the population of a nation continuously vary, its existence and the subjectivity are merely a self-claimed illusion. It is a political gesture to use the term “we” in a speech. Who are included in the idea of “we?” Who are excluded from it?