In the summer 2018, I interviewed aged cinema-goers in Madou in south Taiwan. Many of them remembered old film theatres which used to exist in their town since the Japanese occupation. The memories I collected turned out to be all different from each other and often contradictory. I decided to turn them into a real cinema space. I invited Tainan-based artists Tien Zong-Yuan and Tsai Wen-Chang and the inhabitants of Madou to design a cinema which would include all the memories I collected during the interviews. In order to embrace all of the memories, the designed cinema had three different types of floors, many various types of seats for the audience, posters similar to  those remembered by old Madou cinema lovers. 

The cinema was built in February 2018 as part of the Madou Sugar Industry Art Triennial. It screened films watched in Madou in the past.  The cinema was situated on the corner of small alleys which used to be an important place of local entertainment in the past. During the Japanese occupation, it housed a club which used to be the centre of local nightlife. During the 1950s, a popular open-air cinema was situated there. Today, it is a busy street corner. The participatory film theatre marked an attempt to turn it into a friendly public space where  passers-by may rest for a while and neighbours can come for an afternoon chat.

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