《金寶螺胡撇仔》以多物種影像實驗自然史的方式,嘗試呈現宜蘭友善耕作水稻田裡的多物種連結與共生景象。原生於阿根廷的福壽螺於1979年引進台灣,短短數年間迅速擴散至亞洲各地。然而與其以農藥殺螺同時也殺死其他的水田生物,近年於台灣各地興起的友善稻作小農社群嘗試轉化農民與福壽螺的關係。透過農技藝的復古與創新,許多友善耕作小農嘗試將農民與福壽螺的關係從對立性的「害彼害己」轉化為「減量共存」,甚至進一步創造「協同生產」的可能。《金寶螺胡撇仔》描繪的正是以上從「人螺殊途」到「人螺共生」的共同演化之道。透過從不同物種尺度拍攝的影像與結合分析與想像的劇本實驗,《金寶螺胡撇仔》挑戰西方知識體系對於不同的人、以及人與非人之間階層化的預設,轉而透過「實驗自然史」嘗試彰顯多物種民族誌的理論關懷。
Golden Snail O-pe-la (a "hybrid" form of Taiwanese folk opera) is a genre-bending, multispecies enactment of experimental ethnography. First imported to Taiwan from Argentina in 1979, Pamocea canaliculata is now a major pest to rice agriculture in Taiwan and across Asia. Whereas conventional farmers use poison to exterminate snails, a new generation of friendly farmers (youshan xiaonong) in Taiwan's Yilan County are attempting to achieve a symbiotic, multispecies way of life within the paddy. Drawing on a variety of knowledge sources, including personal experience, institutional science, social media, traditional calendars, and local understandings of ghosts and deities, these farmers construct an experimental natural history of organic rice paddies, which self-consciously intersects with the observations and interventions made by other more-than-human paddy denizens.