Green Island Biennial

Duration of 149 Sea Miles: The Struggle of Memory against Forgetting

May. 17^th 2025 – Sep.21^st 2025

On May 17, 1951, the first group of political prisoners departed from Keelung Harbor, embarking on a 149-nautical-mile journey to Green Island. Subsequently, political dissidents were transported from Keelung, Kaohsiung, Hualien, and other locations to this island. During the period of oppression known as the White Terror, these individuals were subjected to prolonged imprisonment, ideological re-education, and forced labor.

Green Island, a tropical island located 17.82 nautical miles from the main island of Taiwan, is visually within reach. This seemingly short distance is reflected in the travel time to Green Island: the round trip between the main island of Taiwan and Green Island takes 50 minutes by boat and only 15 minutes by plane. However, Green Island functions as a visible time barrier, creating a time and space within its confines that is distinctly different from the outside world.

During the period of White Terror, Taiwan, in comparison to Green Island, could also be regarded as an isolated subtropical island, detached from global connections. This barrier of time effectively obstructed the influence of external factors such as surging student movements, anti-war movements, or hippie culture of the 1960s in the West. During the White Terror, Taiwanese people, including the political prisoners imprisoned on Green Island, were similarly confined within the broader society of martial law in Taiwan. The concept of militarized "re-education" developed techniques to deprive individuals of time, infiltrating every corner of society through entertainment, cultural censorship, and campus discipline.

Green Island served as the ultimate standard for the imprisonment of political prisoners, a place where, apart from death, time was most brutally stripped away. The island's geography severed prisoners from the outside world; a mere 17.82 nautical miles was enough to isolate them from the transmission of ideas, from spending quality time with family, from pursuing their original aspirations and youthful years. The freedom of time, as fundamental as air and water, is a basic human right. However, during the White Terror, the Taiwanese authorities transformed time into an invaluable resource, a strategic move that enabled the exercise of power and the pursuit of their political objectives.

In light of this somber history and the suffering of the victims, artistic expression emerges as a potential catalyst for healing, unveiling truths, and resisting the deprivation of time. As one of the few tools to resist time deprivation, art can facilitate an international space for dialogue, allowing the island's stories to transcend their isolation in the vast ocean. The pressing need to document these stories arises from the risk of their eventual oblivion due to the unrelenting passage of time. The act of recounting these narratives and disseminating them to international audiences not only serves as a means of confronting the perpetrators but also functions as a resistance to the deprivation and absurdity of history. Through the medium of storytelling, these narratives are preserved, becoming a testament that transcends geographical boundaries and temporal periods.

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