• Date 2022.05.10-07.31
  • Venue MoCA Taipei

Unaccounted Travelogue

CHUNG Shefong (Curator); LIAO Yunchan, CHANG Cheng, Gridthiya GAWEEWONG, Thanom CHAPAKDEE, Arthit MULSARN (Co-Curators)

Comments on the Finalist

This is an exhibition that starts from the “other” in the mainstream society and the singular historical perspective. Instead of conveying clearly defined, normative ideas of aesthetics, it emphasizes more importantly on the “aesthetics of connection” on different levels, such as migrant workers and indigenous people, Taiwan and Southeast Asia, bookstores and art museums, social movements and contemporary art, Molam and Linban songs, etc., to further extend the “other” into a perspective cast towards the periphery of Asia. Spoken words and songs as well as music and sounds have all recorded and carried historical traces of the masses and the changes in the present society, engendering the ceaseless life force of the masses to nurture the soil of survival amidst diasporic existences. (Commentator / WU Sih-Fong)


Artwork Introduction 

Unaccounted Travelogue does not belong to the lyrical genre of travel literature, nor does it include romantic scenes of leisure excursions. Instead, through two interweaving and inter-successive tracks, the exhibition gathers faint and unheard voices at the periphery, which have been long drown out by mainstream narratives. The first track, Not Here for Fun, comprises first-person accounts by Southeast Asian migrants, who express their opinions as laborers, struggles for livelihood, feelings and emotions, as well as observations of the Taiwan society through writings, letters, artistic creations, exhibitions, and performances. The second track, True Love Can Wait Forever, consists of resonances between labor songs and social politics. Using northeastern Thai folk music known as “Molam” and Taiwanese indigenous “Linban songs” (literally, “songs of forest compartments”), it unveils narratives woven with labor migration and the politics of songs.



About the Artist 

Curator | CHUNG Shefong is a music producer and curator. She also founded the grassroot music label, Trees Music & Art, and the Migration Music Festival, both of which are platforms of cultural issues and experimental sounds. Chung has curated the New Narratives Film Festival since 2015, and has launched and produced One Film, One Journey, a college-based Southeast Asia indie film forum since 2017. She produced and directed From Border to Border, a documentary film on the identity of Chinese immigrants in the mainstream society of India. The film was nominated for multiple international film festivals, and was awarded the Grand Prize at the Women Make Waves International Film Festival in 2014. Chung is now an associate professor at the College of Communication, National Chengchi University, and a visiting professor and program consultant at the Master of Arts in Curatorial Practice, Chulalongkorn University in Thailand.

 

Co-curator | LIAO Yunchan is a Taiwanese who is fond of Southeast Asian cultures. She is the current chief editor of “Opinion,” a sub-channel of Common Wealth Magazine, and was the deputy editor-in-chief at Taiwan Lih-Pao Daily. Liao has assisted Lucie CHENG in founding 4-Way Voice, and has launched multiple projects and endeavors, including “Hometown Grandma Project,” the Taiwan Literature Awards for Migrants, the Brilliant Time: Southeast Asia-Themed Bookstore, “Library on the Floor” at the Taipei Main Station, and the movement of “bringing back to Taiwan a book that you are unable to read.” During the pandemic, she also initiated the project, “Finding the Missing Second Mother.” She is the author of Sài Gòn, Xin Chào.

 

Co-curator | CHANG Cheng, whose native language is Mandarin, was the station director of the Radio Taiwan International; editor-in-chief of 4-Way Voice, deputy editor-in-chief of Taiwan Lih-Pao Daily; member of the Ministry of Culture’s Southeast Asia Advisory Committee; host of radio programs focusing on Southeast Asia at the Broadcasting Corporation of China and the Voice of Han Broadcasting Network; and secretary-general of the Dream Together Charity Association. Chang has launched various projects, including “Hometown Grandma Project,” the television program, “Singing in Taiwan,” and the Brilliant Time: Southeast Asia-themed Bookstore. He is the author of Something Happened at Grandma’s House: Southeast Asian Credits Required for Taiwanese.

 

Co-curator | Gridthiya GAWEEWONG is a Thai contemporary art curator, and the artistic director of the Jim Thompson Art Center. Her curatorial practice focuses on the processes of social transformation faced by Southeast Asian artists since the Cold War period. In 1996, she co-founded Project 304, an independent art space in Bangkok, and subsequently collaborated with curators from different parts of the world on various curatorial projects. Her major curatorial endeavors include Under Construction (2003) at Tokyo Opera City Gallery and the Japan Foundation Forum; Politics of Fun (2005), a collaboration with theatre director ONG Keng Sen at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt; Unreal Asia, the 2010 Oberhausen International Short Film Festival co-curated with David TEH; and Apichatpong Weerasethakul: The Serenity of Madness, which toured to Chiangmai, Hong Kong, Manila, Chicago, Oklahoma, and Taipei from 2016 to 2019. Gaweewong was also the curator of Facing Phantom Borders that was part of the 12th Gwangju Biennale (2018). Her latest exhibition was a series entitled Errata: Collecting Entanglements and Embodied Histories at MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum in Chiangmai, Thailand.

 

Co-curator | Thanom CHAPAKDEE (1958-2022) was an established Thai art critic, co-founder of the Bangkok-based performing arts group, U-Kabat, and a radical art activist. He co-organized the performance art festival “ASIATOPIA” in 2002, and organized a community art and participatory art project at Tha-Long village in Ubon Rachathani, in collaboration with photography curators of the Bru ethnic group. He was the artistic director of The Manifesto by MAIILEI. In 2018, he launched and organized the KhonKaen Manifesto, which was later developed into the Manifesto Agenda Summit (MAS), an art collective that aims to deliver the spirit and aesthetics of resistance through the arts and cultures of marginalized communities.


Chapakdee hoped to employ politically charged manifestoes of art to lead artists out of the context of art museums to build a space and pathway for artists to interact with local communities, while enhancing people’s everyday awareness of art, culture, politics and environment through the platform of public forums. In 2022, the MAS organized art actions throughout northeastern Thailand, which took the forms of three art projects, namely, the KhonKaen Manifesto (Khon Kaen City), the Ubon Agenda (Ubon Rachathani), and the Nabua Summit (Nakhon Phanom). Chapakdee passed away due to working intensively for the MAS project during the exhibition of Unaccounted Travelogue.

 

Co-curator | Arthit MULSARN is a researcher of Molam, an independent curator, and an owner of a food stall that serves larbseab. The menu is inspired by his culinary interest and the culture of his hometown, Yasothon. In addition to his interest in the Isan culture, Mulsarn’s practice also engages in pop culture, art, design, and music. He has presented his research about Molam artistry at the Australian National University in Canberra, and a paper entitled, “No More Dirty Joke…Yes! We Are Buddhist,” at the 12th Thai Studies World Conference at the University of Sydney, Australia. Mulsarn was the curatorial consultant to the Molam competition, “Sud Sanan Dan Isan,” held by the Jim Thompson Farm, the co-curator of Joyful Khaen, Joyful Dance, and a researcher on a team formed for establishing the Molam Museum at the Jim Thompson Art Center. In 2015, he co-launched the “Molam Bus Project” with the support of the Jim Thompson Art Center, and was the main curator of the Molam Bus mobile exhibitions that have toured throughout the country.




Production Team

Curatorial Team

Curator: Chung Shefong

Co-Curators: Liao Yunchan, Chang Cheng, Gridthiya Gaweewong, Thanom Chapakdee, Arthit Mulsarn

Administrative Director: Wu Zaoway

Curator Assistants: Wong Suhui, Paweena Nekamanurak

Researchers: Beh Hoong Ling, Ng Shujun

Research Archivist: Yi Chun-min

Soundscape & Oral History Video Editing: Jun Ng

Linban Research Consultants: Ado’ Kaliting Pacidal, Eric Scheihagen, DJ Hatfield

Translators: Anusara Drahmoune, David Chen, Yi Chun-min, Steven Ang, Chen Caiyun

Thai Curatorial Statements Proofreading: Yang Jiansu

Molam Lyrics Proofreading: Kongpob Areerat, Chawarote Valyamedhi

Linban Lyrics Proofreading: DJ Hatfield

Exhibition Title Translation: Thanom Chapakdee (Thai), Annie Vu (Vietnamese), Marco Kusumawijaya (Indonesian)


Artists/Collectives

Adisak Phupa (Thailand)

Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Thailand)

Brilliant Time Bookstore (Taiwan)

Collective of Seen Song Ton & Manifesto Agenda Summit (Thailand)

DJ Hatfield (US)

Huegu (Taiwan)

Ting Tong Chang (Taiwan)

Trees Music & Art (Taiwan)

UFA (Taiwan)

Your Bros. Filmmaking Group: So Yo Hen, Liao Hsiu Hui, Tien Zong Yuan (Taiwan)

 

MoCA Taipei Team

Director: LiChen Loh

Deputy Director: Yu-Han Chang

Department of Exhibition

Deputy Supervisors: Shirney Wong, Ian Yi-Hsiang Hsu, Gino Huang

Specialists: Shuman Chang, Pei-Yu Liao, Yi-Hsuan Liu, Lucy Lu, Ying-Ying Lin

Department of Visual Design

Specialists: Lacy Yang, Yi-Ting Chen

Department of Education and Communications

Supervisor: Yi-Ying Lu

Deputy Supervisor: Ke-Yuan Hsu

Specialists: Xiao-Yun Chen, Yu-Hua Lin, Yu-Hsun Hsieh, Li-Hsuan Lin, Yao-Yueh Chang, Cheng-An Chang, Yian Chen

Department of Administration

Supervisor: Kate Tseng

Deputy Supervisor: Erika Li

Specialists: Vivian Kuo, Annie Chou, Anita Chen, Ryan Chen

Department of Research

Deputy Supervisor: Huatzu Chan

Specialist: Huai-ya Lin