YU-CHEN WANG

An ongoing project, Sea Forest by Yu-Chen Wang, explores Taiwan's coastal landscapes and mangrove ecosystems in the age of climate change

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Sea Forest brings together fieldwork, archival research, and the artist’s conversations with plant and environmental scientists. The project begins with a botanical specimen collected in 1864 in Formosa (now Taiwan) by Richard Oldham (1837–1864) known as Kew’s last collector.

This specimen preserves a fragment of past plant diversity, prompting reflection on Taiwan’s ecosystems, many of which have been significantly altered by industrial development and habitat loss. The project also revisits the history of botanical exploration under the British Empire, highlighting how colonial networks of botanical collecting and exchange shaped global scientific knowledge and systems of plant classification.

Mangroves, valued for their exceptional carbon sequestration capacity, are increasingly recognised as a nature-based climate solution and have been incorporated into emerging international carbon credit schemes. This recognition has helped drive a global surge in mangrove conservation efforts. Yet in Taiwan, some coastlines have undergone mangrove removal to address ecological imbalances caused by earlier artificial plantings. These interventions aim to restore native biodiversity, including the habitat of the endemic fiddler crabs, and highlight the need for conservation strategies that are grounded in local ecological contexts.

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Sea Forest traces a narrative of exploitation, extinction, and restoration, situating Taiwan’s coastal environments within the broader global challenges of ecological destruction and the climate crisis.

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