Gold Mines, Abyss, Mountain Spirit’s Temple examines several mountain spirit temples in the Shuei-Jin-Jiou (水金九) area that emerged from mining activities, investigating the historical context of their localized development through the transformation of space and religious culture. This region has thrived since the Japanese colonial period through gold mining. Mine owners not only introduced modern extraction techniques but also transplanted mountain spirit worship as a spiritual foundation for miners' safety and prayers. These beliefs integrated with existing local land worship, developing a creolized ritual system that manifested the intricate cultural negotiations and reinterpretations that emerged from the intersection of colonial authority, indigenous worldviews, and religious practices.

With the depletion of gold resources and the withdrawal of industry, these mountain spirit temples gradually lost their ceremonial functions and social connections. Today, only scattered mountain climbers occasionally pay their respects. In response to this fractured historical and spatial memory, this project designs and constructs a palanquin that incorporates both Taiwanese and Japanese religious elements, serving as a vessel for symbolic deity worship ceremonies a hundred years later. The palanquin processes along mountain trails, passing surviving mountain spirit temples and entering abandoned mine shafts, reenacting the ritual processions of divine visitations from historical festivals.

Through video documentation and spatial choreography, this artistic intervention constructs a narrative of temporal dislocation and historical retelling. It employs moving images as a method of historical intervention and memory reconstruction, offering the mountain spirit temples a contemporary mode of symbolic veneration, thereby addressing the futurity of local faith and collective memory.