Taiwan Forum: Re-producing Colonial Modernity: Official Photo Album of the 1935 Taiwan Colonial Exposition

The Boston University Center for the Study of Asia is pleased to present its next lecture in the Taiwan Forum Public Lecture Series Re-producing Colonial Modernity: Official Photo Album of the 1935 Taiwan Colonial Exposition Meng-Hsuan Lee (Department of History of Art and Archaeology, Columbia University) The “The Taiwan Exposition: In Commemoration of the First Forty Years of Colonial Rule” (始政四十年記念台灣博覽會), commonly referred to as the “1935 Taiwan Exposition,” was the largest of its kind during the Japanese colonial era. Both recent academic and popular literature have made it a pivotal moment in Taiwanese history, with a renewed interest in Japanese colonization. Previous research has covered various subjects, such as colonial representations of progress vs. exoticism, systematic introduction of modernist architecture, and how colonial subjects were educated and disciplined through the exposition. However, the photographs from the official Photo Album, produced alongside the exposition, have largely been treated only as historical documents. Its photographic nature and the fact that it was intended as a photobook, have largely gone unnoticed. This paper argues that the Photo Album assumes the role of a colonial museum photographed and reproduced on paper. I use the concept of the museum as a “modern machine” that not only reflected modernity, but also actively reproduced modernity through a “modern visual regime.” The photographic museum on paper documented the modern and eclectic architecture of the exposition while further “constructing” the architectural program of the exposition. The Photo Album helped to reinforce the idea of progress achieved by colonial enterprise and projected a future of the colony of Taiwan as an agriculturo-industrial base for the empire’s southward expansion.

When 6:30 pm to 7:30 pm on Wednesday, April 21, 2021
Contact Name Robert Murowchick
Phone 358-8006
Contact Email remurow@bu.edu
Contact Organization BU Center for the Study of Asia
Fees Free
Speakers Meng-Hsuan LEE (Columbia University)