The Future's Past

Imagining centuries in the future.

Across the history of the Sanxia-Yingge area, the area’s ethnic groups, industry, and hydrology have gone through multiple migrations and cycles of rise and fall. Formerly there was a port, farms, train stations, and chimney stacks of industry. Over the past century, residents of the area have experienced many different lifestyles and conditions.

Today, the New Taipei City Art Museum sits at the Sanying Reclamation Area where the Yingge and Dahan Rivers meet. The museum is constructed from discarded pottery and waste soil. Here the land itself recounts history. Among the audio works, we hear sounds of memory, ethnic groups, industry, hydrology, folk tales, and oral legends. Here, we imagine what today’s newly developed land will resemble in the centuries ahead. If someone finds remnants of a scene long disappeared, hints of only sound, what would they hear? A fictional sound composition about a future history.