The gift exercise / Invitation 4.3 : Camphor

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Japanese colonial government in Taiwan forcibly seized the remaining territory still controlled by Indigenous groups at the time. As a part of this maneuver, the Japanese army built large fences ("Ayu-Lines") made of electric barbed wire around these mountainous area – which was also the habitat of the valuable camphor trees.
Camphor, a substance extracted from the camphor tree, was a major ingredient in two revolutionary inventions made in the West at the end of 19th century: Smokeless gunpowder and celluloid, the first synthetic resin, whose flexibility made it possible to shoot moving pictures. Camphor is – so to say – the raw material of Hollywood's success.
The gift exercise / Invitation 4.3: Camphor is a group of works which investigates these historical connections as well as the question how (this) (hi)story can be told.