Guardian of the Land, Irene Ho

This artwork draws inspiration from "Wawa no Cidal," a film that explores the journey of Taiwanese indigenous people in reclaiming their cultural identity. The piece features the face of an Ayatal elder crafted from ropes and yarn to create a map-like composition, symbolizing their belief that deceased ancestors will protect their land under modern exploitation of land fraud. To achieve a map-like texture, I employed a combination of acrylic, gesso, golden paste, Conte crayon, dirt and sand from Taiwan, and a few of my footprints in my artwork.