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100 Years of Taiwanese Voice & 30th Anniversary of ITH

Publication date: 20 Oct 2023
Author: The Archives of Institute of Taiwan History

The 30th anniversary of the ITH coincides in 2023 with the centennial of the launching of ‘Taiwan Minpao.’ Both institutions are important milestones for the people of Taiwan coming into the process of exercising their self-awareness, voicing their opinions accordingly and forging a consensus around the issue. With ‘100 Years of Taiwanese Voice’ and ‘30th Anniversary of ITH’ as focal points, the exhibition makes use of specially selected diaries, newspapers, old books, manuscripts and photographs retracing the 1920s and how contemporary Taiwanese popularized ideas by means of the press, thereby sowing the seeds of conviction for change. The founding and subsequent development of the ITH help to explore Taiwan’s journey from the yoke of martial law to the state of diversity as well as the evolution of Taiwanese history from a marginal academic discipline to a new frontier in mainstream academic research.

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IV. The equipment and technique of photography that John Thomson applied

The photography technique that John Thomson applied was wet-plate collodion, which was invented by Frederick Scott Archer in 1851. The equipment included a wooden camera, a portable tent to be a dark room, glass plate negatives, collodion and silver nitrate used to be sensitizers and developers. However, walking in the old-growth forest with the equipment was not convenient at all. Hence, John Thomson hired several porters assisting him to take photographs. Since the exposing process of wet-plate collodion took several seconds to 2 minutes, the photographer’s expertise and his interaction with the models were both tested. Surprisingly, there were no serious conflicts between the plain aborigines in Taiwan and western people. It was likely that Dr. Maxwell’s introduction already won the trust from Taiwanese plain aborigines. Therefore, they were calm and comfortable when facing John Thomson’s lens. According to what Thomson wrote in Through China: with a Camera, we can know that Taiwanese plain aborigines were very hospitable.


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