Artist: The Termites (Yi Qian Chan, Masashi Echigo, James Jack, Elica Masuya and Qiutong Zhai with Xiaojing Wang)

Materials: More than human traces, stones, buoys, steel, paint, coral, sand and participatory digital archive.

Dimensions: Expansive coastal area with beach, stones, air and trees.

Description:

The social sculpture “Nest: Traces” by The Termites begins with diverse species in the coastal marine ecosystems of Guanyin Algal Reefs (觀新藻礁). As artist symbionts we turn as humans to work with fiddler crabs (招潮蟹), mudskippers (彈塗魚), eriphia (酋妇蟹),  horned ghost crabs (角眼沙蟹), sand shrimp (沙蝦) , and other more than human kin. This artwork opens participatory systems to co-create with sea life in the micro ecosystems of Xinwu which reveal richly woven patterns. The Termites established a collaborative platform between humans and non-human beings through hosting traces workshops in Taoyuan, Shodoshima, Taipei and Tokyo. This work is co-created by diverse participants sharing their own “traces” of non-human creatures in their immediate habitat in our archive of multi-sensory media.  Beginning with youth engagement onsite months before the festival began, we collected samples in the tidal areas, mangrove forests and algal reefs. Trace observations by participants continue in the digital trace archive here: tracestaoyuan.cargo.site (Please share your own traces here. They can be photos from your phone, a sound recording, a journal entry – any trace of more than human kin.)

Biography:

The Termites (2022- ) is an artistic collective of thirteen human and countless more than human members whose aim is to encourage creative interspecies relations. In symbiosis with highly social insects our individual roles aid each other to thrive as a collective we conduct artistic research on more than human ecosystems to share ways humans can learn from other species. The Termites collective foster co-creation with insect, animal, vegetal and more than human kin through community workshops, artist residencies, publications, open studios, exhibits and ongoing creative experiments concentrated in Shodoshima (Seto Inland Sea, Japan).

Queen ants: Shintaro Miyawaki, Sanae Imagawa, Shuho Jishi,  Asuka Sarai, Michael Yada.

Scout ants: Masashi Echigo, James Jack, Elica Masuya.

Harvester ants: Yi Qian Chan, Qiutong Zhai, Ayaka Kawabata, Saki Kurushima, Xiaojing Wang.

Special Thanks:

Bengang Elementary School, Yada Construction, Yukari no Space Shodoshima