引路人

這一次，陪伴「我們的世界不斷在開門」的引路人，就是曹開（１９２９－１９９７）與歐陽劍華（１９２８－２０１１）兩位前輩。

 

曹開，１９４４年考入豐原商業專修學校。１９４９年就讀台中師範學校美術類組三年級時，被懷疑牽涉中共地下學委會組織被捕，１９５１年轉至綠島服刑至１９５９年。歐陽劍華出生福州，１９４９年隨國軍來台，曾在金門擔任國小校長，５０年代因反對在校內作政治宣傳而被誣陷入獄。

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曹開的詩，以虛對實。為避現實殘害，選擇數學語彙入詩，將難以明說的以及藏匿其中的真實，完整打包跨越時空引渡給每位讀者。歐陽劍華的畫，以真實對付懸虛，實況轉播那段僅止耳聞難以視見的過往，讓人無可躲閃，只能正面接下呈堂的第一手資料（original sources）絕無懸想（hearsay）。

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有了「當事人」作地陪，隨行叩門的六位創作者，從遙遠的此在與他們的生命、作品交談，提出全新創作，是回響，也是收穫。因此，進入展間後，您可能可以明顯感受到這兩位引路導師如影隨形地迴盪在整個觀展過程之中，正如曹開在〈面對死亡〉中所述。

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「伙伴，我們揮起靈魂的火劍。遠遠地圍成一團，邁向另一個理想的世界」

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引路人的思想曖曖內含光地超越時空與文化屏障，抵達此刻

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「誰來繼承我

照亮那暗淡的鐵窗呢？」

一顆殞落的孤星

到處詢問

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「我願盡我所能

盤旋在獄中，鐵柵間

放射光芒，關照患難的囚犯」

螢火蟲幽默地說

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曹開〈螢火蟲的幽默〉

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The guides accompanying us in Keep Opening Doors are Tsao Kai (1929-1997) and Ou Yang Jian Hua (1928-2011). Tsao Kao was accepted into the Fengyuan Commercial Special Training School in 1944 and later attended the Taiwan Provincial Taichung Normal School, where he studied art. During his junior year in 1949, Tsao was arrested on suspicion of involvement in an underground Chinese communist organization in the school and was transferred to the Green Island Prison in 1951, where he was incarcerated until 1959. Ou Yang Jian Hua was born in Fuzhou, China, and came to Taiwan with the Nationalist Army in 1949. Ou Yang was a principal at an elementary school in Kinmen, but in the 1950s, he was falsely accused and imprisoned for opposing political propaganda in the school.

 

Tsao Kai’s poems use the imaginary to confront reality. To avoid being harmed in real life, he chose to use mathematical lexicons in his poems to convey difficult-to-explain and hidden truths, and spanning across spatiotemporality, they are now candidly shared with each of his readers. The paintings by Ou Yang Jian Hua, on the other hand, employ reality to tackle what was elusive and masked, faithfully presenting that bygone period, which has been told but is difficult to see. With no place to hide and no hearsay, we are confronted with first-hand original sources.

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With “witnesses” of that chapter in history as our guides, six artists have come to keep opening doors. By engaging in dialogues on their lives and artworks and revisiting that distant past, the new creative endeavors proposed by the artists serve as responses and are also the results of the insights they’ve gained. Upon entering the exhibition space, you might get a strong sense of the presence of our two guides; they are there every step of the way throughout the entire exhibition experience. As written by Tsao Kai in “Facing Death”: “Companions, let us wield the fiery swords of our souls. Let us gather together in a circle from afar and march towards that other world which is ideal.”    

 

The thoughts of our guides have transcended space and time and broken cultural barriers. Like a light that glows from within, they are with us, here and now.

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“Who will succeed me

in lighting up those dark barred windows?”

A lone fallen star

asks all around.

 

“I'll do what I can

to hover in the prison and shuffle between the bars

to shine my light on those prisoners in agony,”

says the firefly, humorously.

 

Tsao Kai, “The Humor of a Firefly”​