Regarding the history of Taiwan during the final stages of World War II, although scholarly research has gradually brought this period into public view, when attempting to understand the conflict in greater depth, one quickly realizes that many aspects remain unexamined. These untold stories, which once unfolded on the very land we inhabit, have rarely been directly discussed. The works in this exhibition attempt to reconstruct this unfinished history. Through the use of materials such as cement and archival sources, the artist evokes the experience of fieldwork and archival investigation—piecing together events that have long been buried. This practice also serves as a way of recording and sharing the outcomes of research, while weaving in knowledge about aircraft models, camouflage patterns, weather conditions, landscapes, vehicle operations, and usage practices. In the process of verification, the artist also rediscovers the land itself, not only by tracing its historical development but also by sensing Taiwan’s latent geopolitical significance.
The exhibition centers on the historical event known as the “Formosa Air Battle,” which took place from October 12 to 16, 1944. In preparation for the invasion of the Philippine Islands, the U.S. military sought to clear nearby obstacles and launched air raids on Taiwan with a fleet of seventeen aircraft carriers. This was the first large-scale air raid on the island and the only aerial battle in which Japan and the United States contested air supremacy directly over Taiwan. The outcome was lopsided: while the U.S. suffered only minor damage to a few ships, the Japanese lost hundreds of aircraft. A defining moment came when the Japanese military grossly exaggerated its reports of victory, mistakenly believing it had gained the upper hand, while the U.S. fleet staged a feigned retreat to lure more Japanese planes into pursuit—only to annihilate them. Existing scholarship tends to focus on this overarching narrative, while the air raids on Taiwan itself have remained a neglected backdrop. This exhibition thus places the emphasis on the island, foregrounding the overlooked historical episodes.
In Chinese, “嵐” (lán) refers to mountain mist—events that appear and vanish without a trace, much like fog. In Japanese, however, the same character means “storm,” alluding to the tempest of warfare that swept across Taiwan in October 1944. Notably, the Japanese air fleet involved in the Formosa Air Battle was named “Unit T,” derived from the initial of “Typhoon,” as it was trained to fight under stormy or nocturnal conditions. The Vanished Storm, therefore, functions as a symbol that shifts across different linguistic and cultural contexts. In the same way, both the Battle of Taiwan and the Formosa Air Battle have carried different meanings and positions depending on whether viewed from American, Japanese, or Taiwanese perspectives.