Reading at Toynbee Studios: ‘Leg Room’ Event
I did a reading of my work at Toynbee Studios as part of Leg Room. The piece is about my encounter with a taxidermy alligator as a child. In (my recall of) this childhood memory, my grandpa told me to go sit on the creature, and the fear/fascination I felt in that moment has lingered to this day. ‘Once I saw on an alligator and felt its skin’ is an investigation into the visceral experience of this early encounter with artificial nature, and a wistful wondering of exactly where the alligator was and may still be now.. does it think of me as I think of it? Is it waiting for me, in the enduring darkness, as I threaten to find it?
It was so great to be part of an evening of experimental, humorous, and heartwarming pieces.
Leg Room: “An event that allows artists space to explore their practices in the presence of an audience, celebrating works in time-based mediums such as film, performance and sound art. The concept of Leg Room was born from the ashes of Wimbledon College of Arts’ Fine Art event series ‘Elbow Room’, hosted termly until the discontinuation of Fine Art courses at the college in 2021. Inspired by Elbow Room’s spirit of experimentation, community and alternative approaches, Leg Room aims to carry on the legacy of celebrating time-based media.”
Once I saw on an alligator and felt its skin
Recall
I sense an alligator. it waits idly in the middle of a room. the room is just small enough for the alligator to feel substantial in scale, but just big enough for it to feel awkward in this space, with its belly permanently rested on the shiny wooden floors. I was absolutely frightened to my core by its unmissable presence in the artificially lit space– and the light was the type that mimics warmth but has no intention of delivering the real thing– especially with the way in which the alligator is so jarringly placed in this seemingly empty house, no glass container, no barrier to distinguish the difference between it and its spectators.
you can imagine my sheer horror when my grandpa told me to go sit on the beast, scales and all. there is no guarantee it wouldn’t move an inch whilst I crossed the sacred barrier. to quote one of my favourite essays, “The ‘completely real’ becomes identified with the ‘completely fake’. Absolute unreality is offered as real presence,” The staged reptile underneath my little body was as real as real can be. granted, it might not be ‘completely fake’, in the sense that its skin might have been skidded off the back of a real alligator, one that had flesh and bones and blood it contained in its most natural habitat somewhere. I don’t know. I couldn’t know for sure. my grandpa had collections of things that people have sold to him as the real and authentic, but who knows? there is no guarantee.
so, yes, I am fairly certain I once sat on the back of a very large alligator-thing in a possibly-empty house. I don’t recall what the occasion was, or why I was there. I just know my grandpa brought me there, most likely with my mum, just to show us this place, deep in the high mountains of Taiwan. I don’t know how I know it was on a mountain, I just do. the air did not feel normal. it had to be of high altitude.
it is one of those very deeply buried, almost-subconscious, life-altering early memories of an encounter to artificial nature that was probably fundamental in my early development. because of certain experiences in my childhood, I became extremely fascinated with natural history and how humans preserve, exhibit, and experience nature, especially in hyperreal forms.
it is funny, one of the few detective stories I made up as a child involved a water well and a possibly animatronic alligator. the alligator was key to cracking the mystery, but I can’t [for the life of me] remember why.
2. Research
in processing my recall, here are the questions I googled:
difference between alligator and crocodile (both are quite scary looking)
can alligators move their eyes? (not really)
do alligators have blood? (yes, duh)
I searched up the difference between alligators and crocodiles because I’ve been using them interchangeably and I suddenly realise I haven’t looked at an image of either in a long time. I am scared. they are basically prehistoric dinosaurs.
sentences that jumped out of me from wikipedia:
Large male alligators are solitary territorial animals.
Alligators move on land by two forms of locomotion, referred to as "sprawl" and "high walk".
Alligator meat is also consumed by humans.
Critical to the alligator's ability to initiate a ‘death roll', the tail must flex to a significant angle relative to its body. An alligator with an immobilized tail cannot perform a death roll.
but alas I am trying to find the location of the alligator-thing I encountered, and I have absolutely no idea where it was, just that it was in taiwan. I texted my mum in broken mandarin for help.
朋友七月的art assignment.. 想小時候的記憶，不過要不知道在哪裡. 我突然想到阿公有那個家，有鱷魚，叫我坐上去.. 是在山上的房子嗎？ 在哪裡..
friend’s july art assignment.. thinking about childhood memories, but can’t know where it is. I suddenly remembered that grandpa has that house, that has an alligator, told me to sit on it… is it a house on the mountains? where is it..
在南投。一個別墅
at Nantou. a villa
還在？！
still there? !
不知道
don’t know
妳可以直接問阿公。他平常也寂寞。需要家人聊天
you can ask grandpa directly. he normally is lonely. needs family chats
thus I was confronted with the challenge of texting my grandpa. we have a strange relationship, if you can call it that. we do not chat. he is normally extremely busy still, with his work, even being 90+ years old. I admire him a lot. but he runs a very complicated organisation and community. rumours of bad people trying to manipulate him swirl around. I’ve been distanced from this expansive community ever since I was born not in taiwan, but in new zealand. people in this community nicknamed me ‘kiwi’ for obvious reasons but also because it sounded a lot like my original name. people revered him and I do not know how to approach such a figure. but my mum said I used to be very close to him, do all the fun little girl things that little girls do with their grandpas, like paint their nails. and sit on a taxidermy alligator. it makes me a bit sad.
I text him. I take fifteen minutes to draft the message.
阿公 我在紐西蘭了. 最近有美術朋友問我有沒有小時候的記憶，我突然想到以前在你的一個家，房間中間有一隻鱷魚. 你叫我坐上去，我那時候很怕.. 不過可能是那之後慢慢喜歡動物，標本，也很喜歡那些長毛象. 每次看都很震撼. 你記得那鱷魚的房子在哪裡嗎? 本來鱷魚就在房子裡？
grandpa I am in new zealand. recently an art friend asked me if I have any childhood memories, I suddenly remembered in the past at one of your houses, in the middle of a room there is an alligator. you told me to go sit on it, at that time I was really scared.. but that might be why after that I slowly started to like animals, taxidermy models, and I also really liked those mammoths*. every time I see them it’s earth-shattering*. do you remember where the alligator’s house is? was the alligator originally in the house?
*another favourite of mine in his collection are these large woolly mammoths.
*I do not know how to translate this term. it is close to the sublime, shock, devastation, awe.
he replied, after ten-ish minutes:
還在，在我收藏的地方，下次回來帶妳去看，
still there, at my collection space, next time when you come back will take you to see it,
哇 好啊. 期待
wow okay. excited
and that was the end of that chat.
3. Reflection
from this investigation I have confirmed that a) the memory was real b) the place was real and c) the alligator was and is still extremely real.
the anxiety from texting my grandpa made me almost forget my mum gave me vital information about where in taiwan this place was located - Nantou - and it is occurring to me that I have no idea where that is.
it is a larger area than I thought. looks like it would be difficult to narrow it down on my own. I can only imagine its location before my possible reunion with the beast… in the middle of this island I half-call home…
it is strange because I feel I had already reunited with it, through the recall of this vague memory… and I am sure I have been through this process multiple times throughout my life… there is a reason why it has refused to vanish… why it is still so persistently lodged in the folds of my brain-space… i wonder if the alligator has also recalled that one time, a little girl perched nervously on its back-scales, shifted her weight to fulfill a request… I can see the alligator now, dwelling in the dark, waiting for me to come home…