Taishin Bank Foundation for Arts and Culture

Comments on the Finalist

TSAI Pou-Ching has long engaged in topics about the relationship between human beings and animals. The modes of survival of the two are inevitably and complexly intertwined in modern society. In this exhibition, Tsai brings wild animals, captive animals and settlement animals into sight, and follows his creative context to mix ingeniously diverse elements, such as video, archive, pottery and sound installation. Starting with a genuine attitude, he examines how the aviary species are impacted by the over-expansion of modern society, re-interpreting human’s approaches of restoring, preserving and studying animals through artistic viewpoints. From the co-learning workshops with Tsou children to representing white-backed woodpeckers’ pecking sounds with a mechanical installation, the artist unveils different space-time in the exhibition in a lighthearted yet thought-provoking manner. 

(Commentator / CHEN Yi-Chen)

Artwork Introduction 

Human-animal relationship has been Tsai’s core concern. The three types of birds featured in the exhibited works – Reverberations at Altitude 2000, Exotic Bird Garden Project, and Song of the Russet Sparrow, are White-backed Woodpecker, Blue Peacock, and Russet Sparrow, each of which represents a specific way of defining animals from the human perspective: wild animal, captive animal, and domestic animal. Through means of science, mysticism, field research, and workshop, Tsai proposes new ways to look at and imagine the human-animal relationship, while offering an alternative approach to become socially engaged, with the possibility of building a meaningful relationship between humans and animals through the mechanism of art production.

About the Artist 

TSAI Pou-Ching (b. 1986) was born in Chiayi, and primarily works with video and installation in his art practice. In recent years, he has delved into biology-related studies. This series is inspired by Tsai’s love for animals and his passion for learning animal-related knowledge and watching animal documentaries since childhood, on which he often develops creative ideas and contemplates on the human-animal relationship as well as its meaning. With such contemplation as a starting point, Tsai employs amateur approaches to the study of biology, such as misuse and fabrication, which depart from common scientific methods to re-examine the human-animal relationship.

Production Team

Executive Producer: CHEN Yi-Ru

Song Producer: TSENG Po-Hao

Action Director: CHANG Shin-Fen

Videographer: CHEN Yi-Ru

Production Assistant: SHI Hua-Jun, TSAI Pou-Ching, CHEN Xiao-Nan

Editor: TSAI Pou-Ching

Sound Designer: FENG Zi-ming

Programmer: Ian HSUE Mole

Sculpture Assistant: LIN Chien-Chih

Installation Assistant: LAI Shin-Yu

English Subtitles Translator: Soma LIANG, Clytie HUANG, Daisy LI

Pottery Instructor: HUANG Hung-Yu

Pottery Modelling Artist: WU Yan-Hong, TIEN Zong-Yuan

Pottery Partner: TuXing Studio

Pottery Assistant: ZENG Xiao-Qin, Channing Ivanka, LAI Tsen-Yu, JIAN Yu-Rou, WANG Yun-Sheng, LIN Jia-Pei