Taiwan lies in warm, tropical water, and fishing has long been an important part of its economy. Both the Han Chinese from the coast of China and the Westerners in Europe brought commercial trade and cultural exchange between the East and the West through navigation over the past 500 years. For most of this period, people have assumed that our vast ocean was limitless and immune to human impact. It’s only recently through the struggles of fishermen that we come to realize the devastating effects we have already had on the sea: global warming, plastic pollution, and overfishing. As Callum M. Roberts reveals in The Unnatural History of the Sea, the oceans’ bounty didn’t disappear overnight. While today’s fishing industry is ruthlessly efficient, intense exploitation began not in the modern era, or even with the dawn of industrialization, but in the eleventh century in medieval Europe. This long and colorful history of commercial fishing may no longer continue if the government and society as a whole don’t act now to save our oceans and the bounty they contain.
We must reconsider the relationship humans have with the ocean. Take the female divers of Jeju Islands, South Korea, as an example: by using only flippers and goggles — no breathing equipment — they scour the sea bottom for abalone, conch, and octopus. Of course, their productivity cannot be compared with industrial fisheries, but this is how the island people develop a unique traditional culture so that the resources of the ocean are not depleted. Taiwan must find their own way to coexist with the ocean sustainably.
This thesis will focus on cultural preservation and education of not just fishermen, but consumers of marine life. The site is located on Badouzi Fishing Port, which is ideally situated to bring awareness to the general public and revitalize communities nearby that have been abandoned due to the decline of the fishing industry. By combining the wholesale fish market with an exhibition that explains this situation in three parts, from the current crisis to how we devastated the sea in the past and ending with how to correct the current fishing environment, fisherman and residents will be moved to develop a more balanced/friendly/realistic relationship with the ocean
