Taishin Bank Foundation for Arts and Culture

Comments on the Finalists

Six Dreams By the Sea is a phasal summary of the three-year art project, Island of Plastic Dream, and attempts to use the urban and rural elements of Kaohsiung to tell a story that is not so much about Kaohsiung per se. From prime areas to the lots of forced eviction, the production combines multiple media, including documentary theater, sound walk, hand-puppet theater, and adventure game, to open up and re-combine various locations and sites so that the audience can re-assemble their fragmented understandings through this dark tour to reconstruct an image of the periphery in both urban and rural areas. Facing such a scale encompassing the urban to the rural, the project also expands its creative team, which gives the main creator a more challenging task of integration and coordination. It is praiseworthy that the project has grown bigger and matures as it is built upon the foundation of a three-year research project and productions from different phases. (Commentator / WU Sih-Fong)

Artwork Introduction 

Six Dreams by the Sea is part of the creative project, “Island of Plastic Dream,” which was launched by TSENG Yen-Ting in 2020. Through research and field study, the project aims to explore the unique historical context of the petrochemical industry in Taiwan, and initiate dialogues and discussions about the topic through various forms of art. The production team of Six Dreams by the Sea was formed in early 2021. After nearly two years of research and field work, reading related literature, tracing news reports, visiting sites and organizations, as well as talking to related personnel (business owners, locals, social activists), the team uses plastic commonly found in our life as a lead-in in this work to document and generate discourses about how the development of the petrochemical industry could utterly alter our everyday life within three generations of time.

About the Artist 

Uncertain Studio is formed by Taiwanese artists CHIANG Tao and TSENG Yen-Ting, both of whose practices span the performing arts, visual arts, and music. Coming from a background in theatre design, they have performed in theatres, art institutions, and alternative spaces, with simple organization and an aesthetics oriented towards the visual and auditory senses, creating durational experiences of performances centering on found objects and environmental sounds. In recent years, they have focused more on utilizing different forms to direct the audience’s attention to the surrounding environment, while incorporating social issues into their works through posing questions.

The name “C-Turtle Tactic” refers to migration, play, and in progress. Through returning home and rediscovering Taiwan, C-Turtle Tactic aims to create a space for discussion and political participation with their creative works. In recent years, they have started from Kaohsiung to further expand exchanges and connections with artists from the East and Southeast Asia.

Production Team 

Presented by Uncertain Studio  & C-Turtle Tactic

Created by Sz-Ni WEN, Yenting HSU, Ming-Yi CHEN and Yen-Ting TSENG

Project Director: Yen-Ting TSENG

Executive Producer: Spring CHEN 

PR Counselor: Yen-Nin TSENG

Performance Staff: Ching-Fang HUANG 

Key Visual Design: abwu 

Photographer: Willy Liang 

Video Documentation: 2397 Film Studio