Abstract—Former sites of torture and imprisonment
converted to prison museums play an important role in forming
the testimony underlying the history and national identity of
Taiwan’s contested past. Oasis Villa, an extension of the existing
New Life Correction Centre on Green Island, was also known
as the Green Island Disciplinary Education Prison. Political
prisoners who opposed the ruling government were imprisoned
here, and it was a final destination for victims transported from
prisons in Taiwan during the period of Martial Law.
This paper examines the reconstructed history as
represented by museum exhibition. This produces an
ambivalent memory of, and one-sided perspective on, the
experiences of the surviving victims. This paper analyses the
history as reconstructed from the memory of a single source,
and this depicts a partial picture of the prison through
interpretations that form museum exhibitions that anesthetise
the former site of punishment and incarceration. These findings
reveal a past ignored by the binary oppositions of living
memory which constitutes the difficult past and its
transformation. This research also discusses the representation
and interpretation of the political prison as it is transformed to
the Green Island Human Rights Cultural Park, and its role in
the modern society of Taiwan.
Index Terms—Political prison, martial law, representation,
museum.
H. W. Lin is with the National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan (e-mail:
hwlin@ mail.ncku.edu.tw).
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Cite: H. W. Lin, " Re-Constructed Unitary History on Green Island, Taiwan:
The Former Political Prison/Oasis Villa," International Journal of Social Science and Humanity vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 265-271, 2015.