Bodies as Living Archives
Remembering Korean War POWs in Taiwan
English In 1954, more than 14,000 Chinese prisoners of war from the Korean War came to Taiwan and were publicly represented as “Anti-Communist Heroes” within Taiwan’s Cold War political narrative
Who has the authority to decide how Korean War POWs in Taiwan should be remembered: the state, the archive, or the people whose bodies and memories carry this history?
The “Anti-Communist Heroes” were once highly visible political symbols in Cold War Taiwan, yet the complexity of their individual experiences has become far less visible. Revisiting their lives through testimony, artistic practice and embodied memory invites audiences to consider how states, archives and individuals produce different versions of the past. Beyond Taiwan, the story contributes to wider conversations about Cold War history, displacement and the politics of memory in East Asia. It ultimately raises a question relevant to public history across different contexts: who has the authority to determine how difficult histories are remembered?
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Bodies and the language of official memory
More than 14,000 Chinese prisoners of war from the Korean War arrived in Taiwan in 1954. Public representations of them as “Anti-Communist Heroes” became central to Cold War memory politics.
What a living archive can preserve
Hsiao-Chi Chu’s exhibition asks what happens when bodies, personal experiences and later artistic research are placed beside administrative and political records.
Remembering beyond a single official story
The project examines the difficulty of retrieving displacements, loyalties, belonging and identity when archival language itself is historically charged.
Sources & Credits
Original project references, visual sources and creator credits are collected here in one place.
- Creator & project
Hsiao-Chi Chu. Digital exhibition / web story. Who Owns Memory? Digital Public Exhibition, First Cycle 2026.
1. Field notes and documentation from my socially engaged art projects with former Korean War POWs at the Taipei Veterans Home between 2014 and 2018. 2. Existing oral testimonies and interview materials with former POWs, where consent and publication rights allow their reuse. 3. Photographs, artworks and project documentation from my projects Zhongyi Snack Bar and Bodily Folds, subject to copyright, consent and privacy review. 4. Archival photographs and historical documents from Taiwanese public collections, including materials related to the arrival of Korean War POWs and the construction of the “Anti-Communist Hero” narrative. 5. Selected historical and scholarly research on Korean War POWs, their resettlement in Taiwan and Cold War memory.
- Visual and media material
Photographs, documents, illustrations, video and audio are attributed through the project text, captions and contributor documentation wherever that information was supplied. This exhibition page does not grant additional reuse permissions.
- Digital exhibition edition
Web presentation adapted for Who Owns Memory? (2026), with layout and language editing. The original contributors retain authorship of their research, interpretation and creative work.