(Archive) Alkaloid Dream

Betel Nut

The seeds derived from Areca trees encompass alkaloids, notably arecaidine, and arecoline. Upon mastication, these compounds yield intoxicating, addictive, and carcinogenic effects. This botanical specimen elicits augmented alertness, energy, euphoria, and relaxation, exhibiting psychoactive parallels to nicotine.

Taiwan's betel nut industry's roots date to the 1970s, concurrent with modernization. The government initiated construction to boost the economy, while urbanization led to rural labor shortages. Farmers adapted crops due to global trade lowering values. This confluence of industrial change and agriculture spurred betel nut growth, noted for ease and profitability. The burgeoning working class, enticed by its sensory appeal, heightened demand.

Paradigm shift

Modernization, an integral facet of human progress, is commonly perceived as a problem-solving process. Nevertheless, in Taiwan, the betel nut industry has inadvertently transpired as a byproduct of modernization—become an issue that the government must remediate present-day, given its pervasive overindulgence.

To those fragments abandoned during the infinite journey of a “superior future.”

This project serves as a reflective prism, refracting the contentious aspects intrinsic to Taiwan's betel nut industry and cultural milieu while simultaneously interrogating the ostensibly linear progression within society. Through the amalgamation of visual language drawn from the betel nut industry, these installations encapsulate contradictory aspirations of society.