“A Jail Beyond the Prison Walls” comprises letters, notes, photos and court verdicts related to women who were incarcerated or had loved ones imprisoned or killed during the country’s Martial Law Period (1949-1987). It sheds new light on the era of political persecution by re-examining developments from female point of view.
Project head Hsu Hsueh-chi, also a research fellow at Taipei City-based Academia Sinica, said the exhibition is a clarion call for the public not to repeat the mistakes of the past.
“We tend to interpret this period through the stories of those who suffered firsthand,” she said. “But there is another side crying to be told. It is the experiences of the mothers, daughters, sisters and wives who demonstrated incredible resilience in supporting their families in the face of fear, stigma and discrimination.”
Running until Dec. 30, the exhibition represents the results of a three-year field research project between Academia Sinica and National Human Rights Museum Preparatory Office. A three-volume book of stories recounted by 69 women—65 of them victims’ families and four prisoners—was published May 9 on the eve of Mother’s Day this year.
One of the women featured in the exhibition is Chen Su-chiu. Married at 18, she lost her husband two years later after he was killed in 1951.
“Every year my mother would write a letter to my father on the anniversary of his death,” Chen’s son Ho Ying-hung said. “My mother spent the next 50 years loving the memory of her husband while raising me to be the man that I am.”
Another is Feng Shou-e, who was arrested at 20 along with her brother for attending a study group. She only found out he had been executed after her release a decade later. Feng and her family members spent 31 years behind bars during the era.
“Past mistakes and lessons should not be forgotten,” Feng said, adding that she expects the exhibition to underscore the value of cherishing and preserving hard-won freedom and democracy. (YHC-JSM)
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