They craft a bed for marriage, I design a bed for desire
The Journey Behind Crafting Desire
The bed is where we begin our lives and days, as well as where we end them. In Taiwanese culture, the bed is also where a marriage begins but (supposedly) has no end. ‘紅眠床 (âng-bîn-tshn̂g)’ or Red Sleep Bed, Red Sleeping Bed in English, is a constructive and materialistic form of the concept of home, family value, and traditional marriage of Taiwan, which is full of linguistic, artistic, and contextual meanings. Homophony across languages due to multilingualism, transnational artistic style due to colonisation, and craftsmanship across geography due to social change are vividly demonstrated in this artefact.
However, although the Red Sleeping Bed is diverse in expression, it inherited the traditional ideology of gender roles, patriarchy, and heteronormativity. As a wedding gift from the family, the wooden pieces (雕板) and drawings inlaid in the bed frame were the visualisations of wishes and expectations for the couple. The carved decoration emphasises the importance of reproduction and filial piety, making this artefact consolidate the unequal heaviness of family duty. For example, ‘龍鳳呈祥(husband and wife living in harmony),’ ‘望子成龍(witness your son mature and become successful),’ and ‘多子多孫(have a lot of sons and grandsons).’ The woman was asked to be a (good) wife, mother, and labour, but not herself.
‘紅(âng)’ is pronounced similarly to the word ‘安(an)’ in Taiwanese Hokkien. Therefore, ‘Red Sleeping Bed’ sounds like ‘Safe Sleeping Bed’, which provides the impression of reliability. The bed was initially designed to represent an ideal marriage; however, in the past, that meant completely devoted to the husband’s family as a woman. In Confucianism, we believe marriage is the cornerstone of society in which strict gender roles were applied. Yet, society has changed, and such minds have loosened.
Nowadays, diversity and inclusion are the new consensuses. The Red Sleeping Bed demonstrated how a woman’s independent identity disappeared after marriage, but how would it be shaped in the modern context? What if craft-making is centred on non-binary gender and/or non-heterosexuality? As a queer (gender identity sense), I am curious about how the shift of mind would alter the creation while the traditional craftsmanship is still practised. What methods can be applied for queer expression materially? The bed is supposed to be a safe place, as in its name.
Therefore, I took on a journey to re-contextualise a safe place for ‘ideal’ marriage representation in the form of a traditional artefact. I visited five woodcraft masters — 洪耀輝(Âng iāu hui), 黃裕凰(N̂g jū hông), 侯瑞成(Hâu suī sîng), 黃希宸(Huáng Si Chén), and 石佳蕙(Shíh Jia Hueì) — who are life-long artisan from the expertise of traditional woodcarving, religious furniture, and contemporary art. By conversing with the masters, I explored and gained insights into the possibilities of queering the Red Sleeping Bed.
Master Âng is a national treasure of traditional woodcarvers in Taiwan. Over 40 years of his career, he participated in numerous temple construction and conservation works as a woodcarver. He also teaches to pass down the techniques at the National Taiwan Univerity of Arts. From his apprenticeship at an early age to becoming the most respected traditional woodcarver in Taiwan, Master Âng shared with me his experience in this life-long dedication to craft. He enlightened me with his modest attitude and the spirit of ‘being traditional’ — a classic personality of old-generation Taiwanese I can relate to. ‘What is a good work?’ I asked him. ‘A work you devote to,’ he answered.
Master N̂g is Taiwan’s first and only female heir of traditional religious furniture artisans. She experienced people’s doubts in this male-dominated industry and had to fight for acceptance. But eventually, she earned the respect and recognition she deserved. After ‘出師(tshut-sai)’, which means completing the apprenticeship and being a master, she actively innovates the craft. She combines contemporary and feminine visual styles into furniture making, but, always follows Taoism rituals and rules. She emphasised the importance of staying in awe of deities. ‘These rituals are irreplaceable,’ she said to me. ‘They are part of our tradition and culture.’
Mater Hâu, same as Master Âng, has worked on numerous temple constructions. What’s different is his trajectory. Between 1959 and 1972, the ROC government (before democratisation) adopted ‘Laissez-faire’ policies to attract developed countries to invest in Taiwan. As a result, Taiwan became the primary out-sourcing manufacturing centre of the USA and Japan. Mater Hâu worked then in a Japanese-owned factory as a woodcarver, producing standardised and commercialised works that were later exported to Japan. Mater Hâu has rich knowledge and experience in ‘artistic craftsmanship’ and ‘industrial craftmanship’. He explained their similarities and differences, ‘how you process and structure a work is important,’ he concluded.
Artisan Huáng, mentored by Master Âng and Hâu while in university, is a woodcarving artist/artisan based in Sam-kiap-khu where is famous for its history of craft. Huáng and his peers are the new generation of traditional art. They have higher education and obtained the skills in university instead of the classical apprenticeship path like their mentors. To Huáng, the practice is more diverse, ranging from art pieces to goods. He explained how to reference folklore and literature, transcending them into subtle, symbolic carvings. ‘You can use the same visualising methods as the masters to display the queer stories you want to tell,’ he suggested.
Artist Shíh came from a traditional artisan family. Her father 石振雄(Shíh Jhèn Syóng) is a highly respected wood figure sculptor, and her mother is a painter of 傳統彩繪(traditional decorative painting). Unlike her siblings, who keep on the track of conventional woodcarving, Shíh Jia Hueì is toward fine art after being trained by her dad and university mentor — 吉田敦(Atsushi Yoshida), a Japanese artist/sculptor resided in Taiwan. She shared her thoughts about her learning process and inspiration in woodcarving. ‘You express your passion and reflection in the chosen theme,’ she taught me, ‘resonating with the audiences.’
This enlightening and inspirational journey of finding the root of making opens up the discussion of ‘queer’ intervention — how can tradition and queerness co-exist in design attitude, belief, structure, sourcing, and expression? Reflecting on all the aspects of making, I realise that the intersection of tradition and queerness is not controversial. Tradition in fact provides the fundamental means and forms for interpreting queerness in practice. Ultimately, I applied the instruction and guidance from the custom, building a re-designed artefact named ‘Crafting Desire’.
The material world offers a vital framework for the formation of collective memory. In this regard, artefacts can be seen as the containers of concepts, especially in light of the fact what we think reflects the objects we make, choose, and use — in other words, our mind is inseparable from objects. ‘Crafting Desire’ is more a start than a result. By witnessing the transformation of the old Red Sleeping Bed, this project changes how we engage with spatial, emotional, material, sexual, and territorial aspects of everyday reality. The bed becomes a place of belonging, demonstrating love and queerness — a bed for desire.
