SHIU JUI TSZ

Territory of Self
自我的版圖
2025

The Territory of Self series draws from the artist’s experience of working part-time in a restaurant kitchen while studying abroad. It examines how transitional migrants establish their personal boundaries through the interplay between their bodies and the surrounding material environment in daily life. The artist uses her workplace—the kitchen—as a metaphor for personal space, or the “territory,” where repetitive tasks and interactions with kitchen items, such as washing, arranging, and placing utensils, symbolize the process of setting, testing, reconstructing, or defending boundaries. As she works, she aims to shape this territory’s borders while reflecting on her body moments and shifts in social position. Through the use of objects and playful associations, she identifies personal boundaries and explores the emotional aspects of migration.

The final piece in the series, Gift, is inspired by the artist’s experience of moving to foreign places. The boxes she sends or carries during her moves symbolize hopeful trust in what lies ahead. Migrants’ lives are shaped by multiple coordinates of time and space, as their existence seems to oscillate between their homeland and their current reality, as well as between the present and the future. These containers, which hold both physical belongings and intangible items, are earned through present effort and serve as gifts to the future self.

《自我的版圖》系列作品源於藝術家留學期間在餐廳廚房打工的經驗，思考跨國遷移者在日常中如何透過身體與周遭物質環境的關係來確立自我的界域。藝術家將打工的廚房場域作為個人主體空間——「版圖」的隱喻；每日重複性的勞動以及與廚房物件的互動，例如清洗、排列、擺放調理盆則像是在遷移過程中畫界、試探、重組或是攻防。藝術家在工作的時間中嘗試構築版圖的輪廓，思考自身所經歷的身體移動以及社會位置變化，並透過物件的使用與遊戲的聯想，指認個人的界線以及遷移的狀態與情緒。

系列作品中的最後一件作品〈禮物〉則是源自於藝術家在異地的搬遷經驗。在她寄出的包裹或是搬家時所攜帶的紙箱中，彷彿帶著一種對於未來的寄託。遷移者生活在多重時空座標之中，在原鄉與現實、現在與未來之間游移。這些裝載著實質或抽象物件的包裹，是由現階段勞動所賺取，並給予未來自己的禮物。

Interview https://www.kingcarart.org.tw/exhibitions-detail/220
Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTCFGHuge-U
Text https://talks.taishinart.org.tw/talks/440/39176

Photos courtesy of Taipei Fine Arts Museum

Works Included