序曲 Overture

１９８７年７月１４日，行政院新聞局長奉總統令，宣告台灣地區自隔日即７月１５日零時起解嚴，經過３８年又５６天的戒嚴管制。民主、自由與人權的門，終於開了。

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「我們的世界不斷在開門」的策展人以及參與本展的新生代創作者都出生在戒嚴時期，以今日之眼探入門洞，曾經無可見的歷史重門掩映。１９８７年７月１５日門鎖解開，身為後來者的我們彷若站在門縫探向淵海暗黑

記憶的森林盤根錯節。在理解歷史的路上，解讀那些易被化約、套裝的意義與面目的此刻，身活其境的前輩無疑是最佳引路人，他們以生命尺度烙下的刻痕，是晚生共感彼時精神的在場導師。

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只有爬過

    黑暗的隧道

見到蒼穹展現笑容

    突開拱門迎接的時候

你才能體會

    由零通到圓的內涵

方能看得見——

    那是原本的思想之門

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曹開〈思想之拱門〉

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On July 14th, 1987, the Minister of the Government Information Office under the Executive Yuan announced by presidential order that martial law was to be lifted across the Taiwan region effective at midnight on July 15th, 1987. With this, following 38 years and 56 days, martial law was lifted from Taiwan, and a door to democracy, freedom, and human rights was finally opened.

The curator and the contributing artists of this exhibition, Keep Opening Doors, were all born when Taiwan was under martial law. Today, we are catching glimpses of a part of history that was once concealed behind a heavy gate, which was unlocked on the 15th of July in 1987, and it feels like those of us who came after are standing by a crack in the doorway, peering back to the dark abyss of the past, where memories are like roots of trees in a jungle, ever so complex and intertwined. En route to understanding history, as we set out to decipher purposes and circumstances that can be easily reduced and lumped together, those who came before us and lived in those times are undoubtedly our best guides. Putting their lives on the line, they left behind imprints that have now become teachers for the later generations to empathetically experience what they had been through at the time.

Only after crawling through

    A dark tunnel

Then seeing the sky with a smile

     And the archway warmly cracks open

Would you then understand

     The significance of going from Zero to Circle

Then realizing—

     There, the Archway of Thought, all along

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​Tsao Kai, “Archway of Thought”