Lakec means crossing the river. I initiated this project series because I felt strange about both the rivers and my own Pangcah culture. In the project, I imagined myself as someone who can not swim. I would try my best to explore the river’s surroundings and understand its neighboring inhabitants, events, and materiality. I would listen to their stories and learn through which path and in which method they crossed the river. I then also figured my way to the river in bits and pieces from their experiences.

Open Contemporary Art Center and the 2nd NML Residency & Nusantara Archive Project has co-curated PETAMU Project since 2018. During that time, Malaysian artist Jeffrey Lim and I both visited Indigenous communities in our respective creative work. Then in 2019, we embarked on a new journey, entering several Indigenous communities in Malaysia. We walked on their rivers and lands step by step. We interviewed the elders and the youngsters through various mediums such as photography, documentary, and soundscape collecting for their oral stories, myths, and songs.
 
The motivation behind was an eagerness to start our own path, exploring the concept of identity. We emphasized our work on the pathfinding process rather than just hoping to finish an art project. Such a motive was the North star of our creative path. With me carrying a camcorder, and Jeffrey holding a self-made camera, we embarked on these two projects across different Indigenous communities and countries. While the quest for the river was the starting point of both Lakec and Lakec: A Very Simple River, to draw a clear map was often a difficult task for me. Hence, I tried to knead the interviews, oral stories, myths, or songs together into my own path, to express and grope my way through.

Growing up in Malaysia and Taiwan respectively, Jeffrey Lim (林猷進) and I shared a common journey with mutual influence and intertwined creative mode.  We walked the river and the land little by little and extended the context and development of our own projects. "KANTA Portraits" is a series of creative projects based on Jeffrey's exploration of identity and nationality.

Jeffrey, who always carries a self-made camera, is Chinese-Malaysian. The prototype of "KANTA Portraits" comes from his inquiries and pursuits in a sensitive and complicated environment of his country and ethnic relationships. Through this drive, his project journey transcends national boundaries and ethnic groups. In addition to our joint project on Taiwan and the Malay Peninsula, he also took his camera to Borneo and Japan. Jeffrey uses a self-made box camera to take portraits in exchange for the subject's stories, narrated and interpreted by themselves, on self, identity, historical understanding, and ethnic culture.

Often, on our journey home or at the path of visiting different communities, my Taiwanese Indigenous background and Jeffrey's Chinese-Malaysian identity spark chemistry and inspire extending perspectives for our actions. We tried to connect, engage, collaborate, discuss, and even permeate each other's creative process. Through these measures, and through looking into each other's camera, we were able to stand in each other’s shoes, better understand what they see in their identity.
 

Posak Jodian is a Pangcah filmmaker living in Taipei, with a degree of Ethnolinguistics and Communication in National Don Hwa University. Posak inherited her father’s name Jodian. She has thrived herself on ethnic identity using documentary as her practice and has done long-term field researches of cultural transition in both remote and urban communities. Posak participated in various movements, to observe the survival gaps of Indigenous youths who have struggled in cities. Moreover, she continues to film a documentary "Social Practice from Straight to Halfway Cafe”. Over the years, Posak has advocated to break the boundaries between identity and recognition through several ethnic and cultural actions. Her works was exhibited at several places, Self-portrait (2008) at Hualien Cultural and Creative Industries Park, Story of Bai (2010) at Taiwan Indigenous Television, Flames on the Water (2016) at N-Factory AIR, Lakec at Open Contemporary Art Center(2018). She is also a member of Halfway Cafe and Haibizi TENT 16-18.


Photographer: Jeffrey Lim