LEE Yung-Chih

Industrial Rubbing (2013 - 2022)

Rice paper, Ink ,Charcoal, Performance Documentary

Lee Yungchih’s work originates from the industrial urban environment of Taiwan that he experienced during his childhood. This landscape, filled with street waste and factory noise, became his artistic starting point. He composes his works by repositioning and appropriating these everyday scenes, attempting aesthetic and cultural critique through this approach.

His artistic practice is deeply rooted in physical sensations tied to specific places. The bodily memories acquired while growing up in industrial areas, experiences of collective labor in processing factories, and the irreversible social changes Taiwan underwent in the flow of internationalization, modernization, and individualization all serve as inspiration for his work. Though his art may appear nostalgic on the surface, it is not mere retrospective sentiment. Rather, it functions as a disguised form that conceals anxiety and despair about the approaching future. Through such expression, he attempts to reinterpret the complex relationships between present, past, and future time.

His exhibition work, the Industrial Rubbing Series, explores the industrialized urban environment, the traces produced within it, and the complex historical and cultural relationships surrounding them. He performs a kind of cultural archaeological investigation by collecting or documenting remnants of life from Taiwan’s industrial areas—abandoned factory machinery, rusted and faded metal, old street signs—and reconstructing them in new contexts.

The concept of '盜版' that appears in his work carries meaning beyond simple copying or imitation. This refers both self-mockingly to Taiwan’s past as a major manufacturing hub known as the “Pirate Kingdom,” famous for copying rather than branding, while simultaneously symbolizing the transition from the era of collective manufacturing to the era of individual branding. Through this historical context, Lee Yungchih explores the changes in Taiwan’s industrial structure and the accompanying shifts in identity.

Industrial Rubbing explores the tension between the remnants left by industrialized regions and the contradictions of modern society, providing audiences with an opportunity to reconsider the relationship between past and present. In particular, by visualizing the memories marginalized during Taiwan’s transition from the era of collective labor to the era of individual branding in the rapid industrialization process, along with the changes of global capitalism, it reveals the complex layers hidden beneath economic development and social transformation.

In the context of the 4th Jeonnam International Sumuk Biennale, Lee Yungchih’s work evokes the shared experiences of East Asian modernization processes. The rapid industrialization shared by Taiwan and Korea, the accompanying social changes, conflicts between tradition and modernity, and the structural shift from collective to individual society demonstrate similar trajectories of neighboring civilizations across the Yellow Sea. In his work, 'neighborliness' emerges as an East Asian solidarity that shares the wounds of industrialization and individualization. The collective memory restored through abandoned industrial artifacts forms an emotional bond across borders among those who experienced change during the modernization process. This suggests the possibility of emotional neighborliness that goes beyond simple geographical proximity, sharing common historical experiences and anxieties about the future.