Early Island Bowed Artefact 0001950-0002000 CE
Former Western Pacific Region
0002500 CE
Handmade bowed wooden artefact recovered from a shelter complex in the former western Pacific. A rare surviving cultural object from a stable island community. It is less sophisticated than similar objects found elsewhere, suggesting this is an early form of bowed instrument technology. It was generally associated with performance or ceremonial use, possibly within elite domestic or ritual settings, possibly used to maintain domestic or communal order.
Early Island Bowed Artefact 0001950-0002000 CE
Former Western Pacific Region
0002500 CE
In the climate disruption of a dysfunctional world of environmental collapse and mass displacements, human origin stories are inevitably interrupted. Memory survives only in fragments, partially accessed through the few surviving objects of past worlds. With historical archives lost, museums function as sites of speculative reconstruction, where objects can only be interpreted through material traces as unstable carriers of meaning.
Violin made by Yeh Hsueh-Chun (ca. 0001960 CE)
Maker: Yeh Hsueh-Chun (0001930–0002011 CE)
Place: Lüdao (Green Island), Taiwan
00021st Century collection: Chimei Museum, Tainan City, Taiwan (transferred to Pre Derangement Gettys Ark in 0002035 CE, currently in collections of Illegal Museum of Beyond)
This handmade violin was made by Yeh Hsueh-Chun during his imprisonment on Green Island in Taiwan during the White Terror period. Made under conditions of political imprisonment and material scarcity, the object once served as a fragile source of companionship, emotional survival, and human dignity within a carceral environment. As a museum object, it bears witess to historical political violence, confinement, and memory
Violin made by Yeh Hsueh-Chun (ca. 0001960 CE)
Maker: Yeh Hsueh-Chun (0001930–0002011 CE)
Place: Lüdao (Green Island), Taiwan
00021st Century collection: Chimei Museum, Tainan City, Taiwan (transferred to Pre Derangement Gettys Ark in 0002035 CE, currently in collections of Illegal Museum of Beyond)
Caution is needed in interpreting such historical statements that were in fact subject to significant political controls that censored meaning at the time. These biases become evident with the objective gaze of time, and enables current meanings to be disentangled from the propagandas of their time.
Informed by Robock, A. (2011) Nuclear winter is a real and present danger. Nature 473, 275-276. doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/473275a; Wilson, N., Payne, B. & Boyd, M. (2023) Mathematical optimization of frost resistant crop production to ensure food supply during a nuclear winter catastrophe. Sci Rep 13, 8254. doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-35354-7; Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower (1993).