INTRODUCTION

Formosa is “Beautiful island” in Português. In the sixteenth century, my country, Taiwan, is founded by a sailor from Dutch, the sailor named my country Formosa. Formosan black bear is an endangered animal which is an indigenous species in Taiwan. I use this endangered animals as the main theme because to summon the animal and environmental care among people in my country.

This project is built in modeling clay, which is also the first modeling clay project I did in my life. The based diameter of this model is about 10cm and the height of this is 30cm. After completing the modeling clay model, I used high temperature to bake it, making it into a more concrete form. Later, I used the Acrylic paint to enliven it.

CONCEPT

Nowadays, lots of animals are suffered from poaching. Rhino poaching in Africa has been an important issue of their government, and the Formosan black bear is identical to them. As Chinese culture believe, the gall of bear plays an important role in medical usage. They believe that eating bear gall could benefit their body.

Carnivorously, human eat virtually every kind of animal in our daily diet, and so does the Chinese culture. However, Chinese is different from other cultures, because Chinese like to eat gall “Alive.” Eating gall alive, of course, is a cruel thing for bear. As a part of Chinese culture and citizenship, I ought to stop this kind of superstitious culture.

In this project, I want to focus on the issue of poaching. The building in this project is Taipei 101, the highest building in my country, and the black bear is trying to climb up the building, trying to escape from the disaster, just like King Kong climbing the Empire State Building. The injured hands of the bear represent not only the wound parts of the bear but the trauma of our culture. Ironically, the helpless bear is climbing the human-made building in order to escape from the human-persecution.