What is the island for you?
你認為島嶼是什麼？

If islands had consciousness, how should they communicate with each other?
倘若島嶼有知，它們之間應該透過什麼形式溝通？

How would you interpret the concept behind this form?
你會如何解讀這個形式的背後概念系統？

Anchi Lin Ciwas｜林安琪

Perhaps it is because the language reveals an invisible view of the world that I am slowly coming back to how people used to see everything around me.

If we look at the word “island” from the Atayal language, we will find that there is no such word in the language, and even when describing “sea”, we use the word bsilung to mean a big pond. This is what I have been imagining about the island, the place outside of the world.

For example, the construction of boats, tools and buildings, when we understand how each island uses specific materials and time to make them, we can outline the development of the environment, ecology and humanities of the island.

自從開始學習族語後，我對於許多事物的觀看開始有了轉變，或許是語言透露出無形的世界觀，讓我開始慢慢回到以前的人是如何看待周招的一切。

如果說從泰雅族語去看「島嶼」這個字時，會發現族語裡沒有這個字，甚至在形容「海」的時候是使用bsilung有著大池塘的意思，所以在形容島嶼時會以形容的方式來說明，最靠近島嶼的直接形容是「在大池塘中間的土地」，但在大池塘外面又是什麼呢？這也形成我對「島嶼」目前一直的想像，那個化外之地。

島嶼間可以透過各自的生活經驗，所發展出來的知識體系作為互相交換的溝通形式，比如說：船隻建構、工具與建築的建構，當我們理解各島嶼如何選用特定材料及特定時間製作時，並可以勾勒出島嶼的環境、生態和人文的發展。