Art and Activism in Makotaay, 2025

Driftwood, clay, monitors, videos

​

The first features six video works documenting the creative and cultural life of Makotaay. These include Close Off Our Land Movement (2011) by Pilis Nanghaisudan, which chronicles the Pangcah people’s land rights struggle in Shitiping, and other videos capturing artist residencies, such as Raito Low’s Tanatanetek, Tsai Jia-Hong’s Hala Fruit as an Indication, and Tanivu Tapari’s ceramic of Makotaay's Spinning Top.

The second section centers on Wawa No Cidal, a feature film by Cheng Yu-Chieh and Lekal Sumi, which offers a broader narrative of the Pangcah community’s 30-year journey toward reclaiming their land. This work complements and contrasts the themes explored in the first category.

The third presents a visual timeline of key events in the land movement and the founding of the Makotaay Eco Art Village (MEAV), reflecting the community’s resilience, creativity, and enduring relationship with the land.

In Indigenous worldviews, land, sea, and all beings are interconnected and alive. Our ancestors taught us to protect the land as we do our own lives. MEAV is located in Shitiping, where mountains, river, and ocean meet. After decades of protest, our land was finally returned in 2020—becoming Taiwan’s first Indigenous territory to undergo resistance, co-management, and reclamation.

In response, the community began re-rooting itself in the land through art, sustainability, and cultural renewal. Today, MEAV hosts the Makotaay Art Festival and Mihoyo, a gathering of seafaring vessels and Austronesian cultures—vibrant spaces for creative exchange, ecological consciousness, and the revitalization of oceanic traditions.