山城台北 Gleaning for Intimacy
Channel: eRenlai Ricci
Date: 25/02/2014

在台北城邊緣的山區，存在著多樣的生態環境：獨特的老社區，或社會實驗的 發生場域。在全球化，且越來越同質化的現代社會中，這些場域可以作為中介 性的空間，給我們一些另類生活方式的線索。 

煥民新村是獨特的歷史和建築瑰寶。由蟾蜍山腳下往上延伸，形成台北最後一座山區眷村。 眷村是國共內戰後來台的外省士兵和眷屬搭建的老社群遺跡。由於當時國軍匆促遷台，難以安置突然湧入的上百萬外省移民，所以大部分的眷村聚落都是在山腳或河邊的畸零地上搭建而成的。蟾蜍山聚落位於自然和都市叢林的間隙，是記錄著歷史湍流的文本。聚落還保存著特殊的社群生活方式，這在現代城市中，越來越難得一見了。2013年，官方決定拆除部分聚落，以利台科大校舍的擴建，這引發了一股眷村保留運動。在運動如火如荼的進展中，我們決定趁這社區還存在時，去探索，記錄，與社群及運動作連結。

At the mountains and the margins of the Taipei exist various unique ecologies of older communities and new socio-experimental laboratories. 

These can act as liminal spaces giving us clues to alternative ways of living in the increasingly globalised, homogenous modern city. Huanmin Village is a unique historical and architectural gem of a community, assembled upwards from the foot of Toad Mountain, Taipei, the last mountainside military dependents' village remaining. Military dependents' villages are makeshift communities built by Mainlander soldiers and their families who came to Taiwan in the aftermath of the Chinese civil war. With a lack of space to accommodate the huge influx of immigrants, most of the communities were built in leftover pockets of land, often at the mountain or the riverside. The Toad Mountain settlement lies at the margins between the natural and urban jungle, was built with a gleaners ethic and maintains an intimate community life increasingly elusive in our cities. In 2013 the decision was taken to partly demolish the settlement to make way for campus development. This triggered an ongoing preservation movement, from which time we decided to explore, document, question and connect with the community and the movement while it still existed. 

A film by Pinti Zheng and Nicholas Coulson