"History is like a bus's rearview mirror. A bus without a rearview mirror can still move forward, but it is dangerous."
The "Rearview Mirror Project" of Penghu Refugee Camps is an initiative to "write history through images." The founder and chairman of the association, as well as documentary director Asio Liu, once served as a professional bus driver for nearly five years. Drawing from his firsthand labor experiences, he offers this unique historical insight.
The Penghu Refugee Camps project originated from Asio Liu's unknown dreams between 1995 and 2003 and developed into the "Penghu Refugee Camps Trilogy" documentary project and VR works from 2013 to 2023. The project has successively received support from the National Culture Foundation (2013-2018), the New Zealand Doc Edge Rough Cuts Workshop (2021), and the Venice Production Bridge (2022), receiving recognition from both domestic and international reviewers.
After ten years of production and setbacks, the documentary feature "A Place of Exceptions" is nearing completion, and the VR project "Somewhere Unknown in the Indochina Peninsula" is in pre-production. We sincerely ask the audience to support the historical mission of the "Rearview Mirror Project" in the final stretch of this journey. When reflecting on Taiwan's identity, the Penghu Refugee Camps' experience of sheltering refugees is a missing piece in the Asia-Pacific puzzle.
Our vision is to create an "ROW (Refugees Of War) VR Museum" in Taiwan, virtually reconstructing it based on the historical experiences of the Penghu Refugee Camps.
