如果通過時間的強酸，有閒蒔花養草，她會在家門前種什麼花
文＿ 徐詩雨
本展覽圍繞著藝術家郭俞平前往印尼，探訪曾經在台灣照顧其爺爺的外籍看護工的旅程展開。透過私密的第一人稱影像紀錄，藝術家試圖從個人視角出發，凝視自我與他者之間交織的關係，包括家庭勞動、情誼連結、遷徙經驗等共同母題所構成的生命軌跡。在台灣社會中，移工長期承擔了雇主家庭日常中的身體照護與情感支撐；然而，當她們離家工作時，自己原生家庭中的陪伴與關懷又由誰承接？藝術家從與自身家族密切相關的照護移工的約定開始，延伸至其返鄉後的日常生活樣貌，觀察跨國勞動如何在不同個體身上留下痕跡，進一步思考：這些經驗是否能被彼此感知，甚至構成相互理解的基礎？
展覽延續藝術家於〈我的胃裡沒有午飯，脖頸在尋覓陽光，腦子求索著愛情，靈魂裡有慌亂，心裡則有一股刺痛〉(2023) 中對女性新移民認同的關注，以及〈珍藏盒〉(2023) 中女性書寫與身體經驗的挖掘，將目光進一步投向離鄉背景下的女性生命歷程。這些女性在出發之前，往往已投注心力學習語言與技能，肩負著生活改善的渴望，也在離開既有社會關係的縫隙中，開啟探索主體性的可能。她們的勞動與情感不僅構成全球經濟流動的基礎，也讓返鄉後的她們面臨身份與位置的再定位。在主流敘事中，她們的日常、信仰與個人渴望常被忽略或簡化，缺乏主觀視角的呈現。本展亦藉由藝術家的旅程，顛覆人類學式的外部踏查，轉向以自身旅程經驗的偶然，記錄如爪哇傳統儀式 Kuda Lumping、Jaipongan 等日常中蘊含療癒力量的行動；同時，也回應旅途中建立的情誼該如何被珍視與交涉。
本展透過多媒材創作，勾勒個人經驗延伸至跨文化共處的微觀路徑，邀請觀者重新體會在高速流動的世界裡，我們如何在不同的壓力與關係中，實踐支持他人與安頓自身的方式。也許是好好地照顧一盆植物，緩慢而堅持。
What Grows in the Breach of Care
This exhibition unfolds through artist Kuo Yu Ping’s journey to Indonesia, where she visits the former migrant caregiver who once looked after her grandfather in Taiwan. Through intimate, first-person video documentation, Kuo reflects on entangled themes of domestic labor, transnational mobility, and relational intimacy. The work traces a shared constellation of experiences between the artist and her subject—experiences shaped by movement, caregiving, and emotional proximity.
In Taiwan, migrant workers have long provided physical and emotional support within the daily life of employers’ households. Yet, when they leave home to perform these roles, who fills the space they vacate in their own families? Kuo begins with a promise made to a caregiver closely connected to her own family. From this point, she follows her subject’s life after returning home, observing how the forces of transnational labor leave lasting imprints on individual lives. Her work asks: can such personal histories be mutually sensed? Can they offer a space for reciprocal recognition?
The exhibition extends the artist’s ongoing inquiries into migration, womanhood, and selfhood. In There Was No Food in My Stomach, Sun on the Back of My Neck, Love on My Mind, Panic in My Soul, and an Ache in My Heart (2023), Kuo explored identity formation among new immigrant women; in Treasure Box (2023), she turned to autobiographical expressions of the feminine body and memory. Here, she turns her attention to women who leave their hometowns to seek work abroad. Often, long before departure, they have already invested deeply in learning new languages and acquiring domestic skills, carrying both the desire for a better future and the hope of temporarily escaping the constraints of home. Their labor and longing form the invisible infrastructure of global economic flows, but they also face the challenge of reconfiguring their identities when they return.
Such lives—rich with routine, belief, and aspiration—are rarely represented. Rather than adopting an anthropological lens, Kuo positions herself within the narrative, allowing encounters to unfold through embodied, subjective time. Along the way, she documents healing rituals embedded in everyday Indonesian life such as the Kuda Lumping and the Jaipongan, while considering how friendships formed by chance may generate new forms of mutual support and recognition.
Through multimedia installation, the exhibition sketches a path from intimate experience to intercultural co-presence. It invites viewers to reimagine how, in the velocity and imbalance of global life, we each learn—sometimes slowly, sometimes imperfectly—to care for ourselves and for one another. Perhaps it begins with something small. Perhaps it begins with tending a single plant.
