Community Meeting at the TAV

The TAV and its surrounding neighborhood is currently embroiled in some heated talks re: land disputes. This is a very complex matter and the outcome has not yet been determined, but last night a town meeting was held in one of the performance spaces at TAV. The government, who owns the land which TAV is situated on and I believe many of the adjacent homes and businesses (some of the from the Japanese colonial era), wants to purchase and raze this area to redevelop it. Suffice it to say, that the area is very poor, though amazingly enough, 7 minutes away is the Taipei Railway Station and Shin Kong Mitsukoshi and the upscale fashions of Zhong Shan Street. Previous negotiations had taken place before, much to the frustration of the local residents who fear and resist displacement, but each time, it seems that the issue grows to be so empassioned that the issue gets dropped for awhile and revisited at another time. Last night, there was much yelling and chair breaking and a lockdown on some of the TAV's public spaces for security reasons. In my heart, I am sure that similar things happened around the building and redevelopment of the Southside complex in downtown Dallas. Residents in South Dallas pushed farther and farther back. But to actually see these individuals fighting gentrification. A powerful and sad thing.

This is the same thing that is also happening in a neighborhood located far south of here called Treasure Hill - an old squatter's community composed mostly of families of soldiers who came over with the KMT regime. Right now, artists and students are trying to save the community from demolition by making it more of an arts community, to the extent that a university has created a new urban plan to revision the neighborhood which would include upgrading of homes, etc. - a plan which the residents do not all agree with. In the interest of community outreach - artists come in and project movies outdoors for the enjoyment of local citizens who don't always appreciate or see the art value.

Having seen the slow death of the Southside program, I get sad about the future of TAV which is a much more visionary program in ways - international exchange, defined involvement with the community, strong staff support and infrastructure. Who's to say what will happen?