The National Human Rights Museum staged four lectures Feb. 8-9 at Taipei International Book Exhibition in the capital, underscoring the facility’s commitment to deepening education on civil liberties, according to the Ministry of Culture.
The talks spanned literature creation, picture book publication, and TV and film production, the MOC said. The NHRM’s display of research, publications and cultural products at its pavilion aimed to deepen the public’s insight into human rights issues, it added.
In one of the Feb. 8 lectures, Paiwan writer Liglav A-wu shared her process of portraying Taiwan’s White Terror period through an Indigenous lens while serving as an artist in residence at NHRM. Since extant political files are not categorized by ethnic group, she painstakingly tracked down affected individuals from local tribes.
A-wu noted that the interviews demonstrated the profound impact authoritarian rule had on native groups, adding that she hopes her work will help Indigenous people learn more about their history.
Additionally, illustrator Cincin Chang expounded on her new book “Giraffe President,” which probes causes of collective trauma and strives to resolve intergenerational conflict.
In the work, Chang explores how authoritarianism arises and becomes accepted by society. In response to an audience question on educating children, she emphasized the importance of media literacy, the MOC said.
During a Feb. 9 event hosted by poet Hong Hong, fellow poets Hsiang Yang and Chen Yun-yuan introduced a selection of 180 poems on the White Terror period that are set to be published in the second half of the year. Hsiang said that how writers reflect social pain is of great significance, while Chen remarked that compared to prose and fiction, poetry is a better medium to portray subtle but omnipresent agony and violence of the era, the ministry concluded.
The White Terror refers to a period from 1949 to 1992, during which the government declared martial law and suppressed and prosecuted political dissidents. (POC-E)
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