泰順牌匾研究案

泰順縣委宣傳部與溫州肯恩大學教育發展基金會於2020年開始合作，對泰順的文化遺產進行調查，並以此作為設想社區未來的創意來源。 為了響應這個機會，溫州肯恩大學建築系開始了一系列的研究工作，收集和研究該地區的各種歷史和文化遺跡。

我們沒有選擇測繪歷史建築，而是决定採取人類學的方法來探尋已經滲透到人們頭腦中的概念。 我們發現了許多散落在不同山頭的牌匾，這些牌匾提供了一套在結構上高度精確的文學性作品，於是我們踏上了尋找此間真意的旅程。

在我們的實地調查中，我們發現並收集了近100個牌匾，並採訪了許多具有當地歷史知識的，與這片土地有著緊密聯系的人。 我們很高興能以這種多媒體的形式分享我們在這一旅程中的發現。

這個網站研究了中國傳統的四字家訓牌匾，該牌匾常見於傳統農村房屋的中央庭院，以文學的形式蘊含著鄉土生活和文化。 這些概念對村落時間和空間的起源具有獨特的意義，該展覽將對此類高度背景化的概念進行批判性分析。

浙江（Zhejiang）意為彎曲的河流，泰順的自然地理特徵也體現著浙江的定義：豐富的水資源與其地理時間相結合，創造了一個充滿了曲折和變化的景觀。 儘管中國可能沒有它的山川那麼古老，但它的文化反映了這種地理時間，它在起源和永恒的意義上是自然的同義詞。 中國人普遍崇尚“長”和“壽”：在中國人的心理中，“長”與自然相近。 體現長壽的自然元素，如石頭、水和其他動植物，自古以來一直是中國應用藝術以及其他美術題材的來源。

牌匾既不是應用藝術，也不是美術。 它是一種文學綜合體，其形成需要在歷史上的某一時期，由不同人群之間達成共識。 吉祥的四字詞語可能象徵著詩歌、聲音、隱藏的資訊或者微妙的引用等。 它是一種集中時間和地點的人類學收據。

我們在旅途中發現，許多牌匾都是從他們的遺址中被盜走的，如今只剩下少數的原件。 較新的牌匾與較老的牌匾有著不同的價值。 它們或多或少被看作是書法風格的象徵，猶如背誦著過往著名的詩篇，卻無法抵達其背後深層的歷史意義。

田野調查的結果顯示，當地社會曾經在一個高度複雜的結構和等級制度中運作，在教育、倫理、政治、階級、親屬關係之間平衡著微妙的交流線，並由此產生了歷史和文化。 如今，許多這些經驗正變得支離破碎，且相互孤立。 雖然日益增長的科技和繁榮正不斷地提供更多的資訊，但卻很少擔負起情感和智力上的責任。 我們無法返回或再現過去，因為我們生活在正當下。 然而，也許我們可以去構想一個與時俱進卻又不負歷史的未來。

我們希望在這個展覽空間散播下討論的種子，以此反映和思考這個簡單卻緊迫的問題。

林宰賢

助理教授
溫州肯恩大學，邁克爾-格雷夫斯學院，公共建築學院
項目團隊：
劉人源，湯泓坤，王清越，嚴婭銘

Introduction

In 2020, Propaganda Department of Taishun County Party Committee and Wenzhou-Kean University Education Development Foundation began a collaboration to investigate the cultural heritage of Taishun as the creative source of envisioning future of the community. In response to this opportunity, the Department of Architecture at WKU began a series of research works to gather and examine various historical and cultural artifacts in the area.

Instead of focusing on and documenting historical architecture, we decided to take a more anthropological and cultural approach to identify any concepts that might have permeated the people’s minds. We soon discovered many Paibians scattered around different mountains, providing a body of work that is highly exact and literary in its structure. So we began our journey in search of meaning behind these forgotten letters.

During our fieldwork, we have found and collected nearly 100 Paibians and interviewed many individuals with local historical knowledge and personal connection to the land. We are excited to present and share a selection of our findings from this journey in this multimedia format.

Zhejiang (浙江) means land where rivers bend, and Taishun’s mountainous plateau is formed to spell out Zhejiang’s very definition. The abundance of water combined with the geographical time has created a landscape in flux, full of twists and turns. Though China may not be as old as its mountains and rivers, its culture mirrors this geographical time, becoming synonymous with nature in its sense of origin and permanence. There is universal reverence to the idea of old: 長(chang) and longevity: 壽(shou): to be old is close to nature in the Chinese psyche. Natural elements that embody longevity, such as stone, water, and other flora and fauna, have long remained the constant source of Chinese applied and fine art subjects throughout history.

Paibian is neither applied nor fine art. Instead, it is a literary synthesis of transactions that requires consensus among different groups of people at a given time in the history of the land. The auspicious four-letter words may signify poetry, hidden message, soundbite, obscure references, etc. It is an anthropological receipt of concentrated time and place.

We discovered in our journey that many Paibians are stolen from their sites, and a handful of originals remain today. Newer Paibians do not hold the same value as the older ones. They are more or less seen as a simple graphic display of calligraphic style and fail to attain any historical layer of meaning behind it even if it recites the same famous letters from the past.

Findings from the fieldwork reveal that society once functioned in a highly complex structure and hierarchy that balanced delicate lines of exchange between education, ethics, politics, class, kinship, which generated history and culture. Today many of these experiences are becoming fragmented and isolated conditions while increased technology and prosperity are constantly delivering more information at little cost of emotional and intellectual accountability. We cannot return and reproduce the past today as we are all living in the present. However, if we think about how to imagine our future, perhaps we can question how we construct a relational experience that matters today?

We hope this exhibition can provide a setting that begins to plant a seed of discussion to reflect and think about this simple yet urgent question.

Jae Hyun Lim

Assistant Professor
School of Public Architecture, Michael Graves College, Wenzhou Kean University

Project Team:
Renyuan Liu, Hongkun Tang , Qingyue Wang, Yaming Yan