➤ jiandyin, Magic Mountain_ The Lost of Golden Pumpkin, 2025-2026. (Courtesy of NTCAM, Photo_ Hsuan Lang Lin)
Of Thread and Stone
When you step into the museum, do the objects on display feel distant from the present? Pick up a strand of thread—can it spark your curiosity about the unfolding layers of textile history? Pause before a scattered stone—does it evoke memories from the darkest moments of the mines? Following New Taipei City’s industrial history, the two seemingly parallel lines traced by “thread” and “stone” weave through the exhibition. They gradually reveal the urban fabric and cultural memory embedded in the labor of men and women, underground and aboveground, in mines and factories.
➤ Kieren Karritpul, Five Fish Traps, Big Dilly Bag and Yerrkerre Syew, 2025. (Courtesy of NTCAM, Photo_ Hsuan Lang Lin)
Edward W. Said once wrote:“A part of something is for the foreseeable future going to be better than all of it. Fragments over wholes.”Through an archaeology of objects, the exhibition invites reflection on lived experience, embracing contradiction and difference, and revealing the many possibilities of history and memory.
➤ Fusing traditional craft and contemporary art, “Of Thread and Stone” traverses imagery, literature, objects, archives, crafts, and artworks. (Courtesy of NTCAM, Photo_ Hsuan Lang Lin)
➤ A corner of the exhibition (Courtesy of NTCAM, Photo_ Studio Millspace)
Curators Zou Ting and independent curator Wang Hanfang present a “museum in progress,” showing how thread and stone traverse time and culture: From Neolithic spindle whorls and Austronesian hand-twisted ramie, to pineapple leaf fibers of the colonial industrial era and denim garments from textile factories; From improvised mine carts along Taiwan’s east coast and handwoven rattan mats of the Amis, to rubble from a Syrian border city and Bedouin heirloom rugs—these analogous elements develop into divergent cultural and geographic narratives, offering traces of resonance across civilizations.
➤ Slavs and Tatars, Friendship of Nations_ Polish Shi_ite Showbiz, 2011. (Courtesy of NTCAM, Photo_ Hsuan Lang Lin)
➤ The exhibition showcases textile tools, natural fibers, mining implements, and local crafts. （(Courtesy of NTCAM, Photo_ Hsuan Lang Lin)）
Up close, “thread and stone” may appear ordinary. Yet as domestic and international artists interpret the relationship between materials, craftsmanship, and social memory through their own creative lenses, we encounter: Cotton bundles from a fire at a Pakistani textile factory, stones hurled at Israeli border camps from Lebanon, inscribed stones along Taiwan’s Ketagalan Boulevard, flags from social movements in Poland and Iran. Through painting, sculpture, installation, and research projects, these fragments weave the complex threads of time and space, allowing visitors to construct their own understanding of history and contemporary life. If memory and technique had a shape, these forms and stories would intersect endlessly, tracing light and shadow across eras. Approached through the everyday, the exhibition offers a microscopic cross-section of history, where each pause becomes a starting point for reflection.
➤ Cheong See-min, A Lost Textile_ Ong Lai Si (Pineapple Fiber), 2025. (Courtesy of NTCAM, Photo_ Hsuan Lang Lin)
➤ Forensic Architecture, Living Archaeology in Gaza, 2022. (Courtesy of NTCAM, Photo_ Hsuan Lang Lin)
