Xucuogang’s eel catching culture is the unique“black-gold”fishery along the coast of Dayuan, Taoyuan. Following the ebb and flow of the winter tides, fishermen set up ladder-like eel racks along the coastline, developing a fishing method in harmony with natural rhythms. Through ecological experiences and local initiatives, this precious fishery memory is carried forward.

Taking the“eel racks”used in coastal eel catching as its prototype, the work transforms their functional structure hidden within the labor scene into a spatial installation open to perception. Steel and wooden rods form the main framework, combined with steel fishing nets and polished mirror-like steel plates, responding to the actual conditions of the eel racks as they withstand the forces of wind, waves, and tidal changes in the waters. The spiral imagery of the installation symbolizes the trace of a drop falling onto water’s surface, turning a fleeting natural phenomenon into a form that can be gazed upon. Through a configuration close to human scale, viewers, walking and pausing, re-experience the relationship between the fishery’s labor structures and natural rhythms. Under shifting light, the swaying steel fishing nets create flowing reflections, weaving together labor memory, natural phenomena, and viewing experience.