22

TAISHIN ARTS AWARD

Taishin Arts Award 2023/24

Eligibility

Winners of the 22nd Taishin Arts Award Announced

Winners of the 22nd Taishin Arts Award Announced

Winners of the 22nd Taishin Arts Award Announced

Apostating Time Wins the Grand Prize for Its Interpretation of Blending a Nanguan Classic and Contemporary Theatre

The Visual Arts Award and the Performing Arts Awards Go to Unconventional Works, Ký Túc Xá (Dorm) and Who’s Koxinga?, Respectively

 

 

The annual major event of contemporary art in Taiwan, the Taishin Arts Award, presented the 22nd award ceremony on June 1st, 2024 and announced the three award winners selected from seventeen shortlisted works. The Visual Arts Award goes to Your Bros. Filmmaking Group’s Ký Túc Xá (Dorm), Taipei Seagull Theatre’s Who’s Koxinga? wins the Performing Arts Award, and the Grand Prize is awarded to Apostating Time co-produced by approaching theatre and Gang-a Tsui Theater.


The 22nd Taishin Arts Award – A group photo of the laureates of the three Awards. From the left approaching theatre” and “Gang-a Tsui Theater (YANG Kai-Ting, CHEN Yan-Xi, CHENG Yin-Chen, KOH Choon Eiow), Your Bros. Filmmaking Group (TIEN Zong-Yuan), and Taipei Seagull Theatre (SUNG Hou-Kuan, TSAI Yi-Suan, JIANG Sin-Ru)


In his toast, Simon CHENG, the chairman of the Taishin Bank Foundation for Arts and Culture, expressed that the importance of the Taishin Arts Award has already exceeded the award itself over the past 22 years, comparing the Award to a zoom lens that stays flexible consistently between wide-angle views and zoom-in shots before eventually focalizing the meaning of the word “annual” to locate, receive, and convey its discoveries to the public through different artistic landscapes. Despite the general frameworks of categories, each shortlisted work is still stylistically unique and serves as a certain benchmark. “The announcement and ceremony of the Award is a summary and re-start of artistic activities in the entire year that crucially drives and attests to the diverse development of contemporary art in Taiwan.”

 

The Final Selection Jury this year was chaired by theatre scholar LIN Ho-Yi and comprised various jurors, including art critic CHANG Ching-Wen, film director HUANG Ya-Li, producer SUN Ping, Paris-based artist CHEANG Shu Lea, the international jurors also included Rhana Devenport ONZM, the director of Art Gallery of South Australia in Adelaide, and Matthias Mohr, the artistic direction and executive director of Radialsystem in Berlin. A total of NT$ 3.5 million prize money was awarded to the three award winners, who have been selected after an extensive three-day meeting.


 

Visual Arts Award (with NT$ 1 Million prize money)

Ký Túc Xá (Dorm) / Your Bros. Filmmaking Group (featured in the 2023 International Techno Art Exhibition “Are You Working Now?”)

 

Performing Arts Award (with NT$ 1 Million prize money)

Who’s Koxinga?/ Taipei Seagull Theatre

 

Grand Prize (with NT$ 1.5 Million prize money)

Apostating Time / approaching theatre & Gang-a Tsui Theater (2023 Taiwan Traditional Theatre Festival、2023 NTT Fall for Great Souls)

 


The Visual Arts Award winner Ký Túc Xá (Dorm) by Your Bros. Filmmaking Group is a video installation inspired by a live-streamed strike of Vietnamese female migrant workers in Taiwan. The art group made an open call to gather Vietnamese migrant workers, agents, dormitory supervisors, and foreign spouses to participate in workshops for co-developing the story plots and designing the characters. The installation in the exhibition uses scenes, props, and video documentation of the workshops to weave and produce complicated narrative threads. Your Bros. Filmmaking Group is founded by SO Yo-Hen, TIEN Zong-Yuan, and LIAO Hsiu-Hui. Among them, SO won the Annual Grand Prize of the 12th Taishin Arts Award with Hua-Shan-Qiang.



TIEN Zong-Yuan accepted the award on behalf of Your Bros. Filmmaking Group and stated that the work mixes workers from different disciplines and fields. Sometimes, it is intensely conflicting, and at other times, confusing and defies reasoning: “This has been an experimental process to us. From purchasing cameras, using microphones, and promoting the work on YouTube, we have worked with migrant workers from different factories, agents, and foreign spouses to slowly shape the work. We thank everyone who has taken part in this process and created this dream with us. This award is for them.”



Regarding the Visual Arts Award winner, the jury committee states: “Through the remarkable energy of re-enactment, Ký Túc Xá (Dorm) acknowledges the subjectivity and human rights of migrant workers. It employs a respectful attitude to look at various cracks in the real world. The creative approach via workshops fosters a playful environment where the struggles of life are expressed within a distributed creation process. By engaging private spaces, it inspires public awareness and dialogue. The project becomes a vibrant tapestry of interwoven voices as the art forms, chosen to resonate with the project's perspective, illuminate the potential for translation, communication, and negotiation in everyday life. Ký Túc Xá (Dorm) brings to light the challenges and opportunities faced by contemporary Taiwanese society.”



The 22nd Taishin Arts Award – Board director LIN Mun-Lee (right) presents the Visual Arts Award to Mr. TIEN Zong-Yuan, on behalf of Your Bros. Filmmaking Group


The 22nd Taishin Arts Award – the Visual Arts Award Ký Túc Xá (Dorm) by Your Bros. Filmmaking Group, Image courtesy of Your Bros. Filmmaking Group


The Performing Arts Award is awarded to Taipei Seagull Theatre’s Who’s Koxinga?, a traditional Taiwanese opera production that spans centuries of history. It blends Han Chinese/international histories along with different depictions of Koxinga in folk tales and urban legends to tell the stories of historical figures, whose lives are intertwined with Koxinga while incorporating the actors’ personal supernatural experiences as mediums. The two actors, KU Yi-Fan and LIU Kuan-Liang, skillfully transition between complex identities and historical periods, delicately crafting “a play within a play within a play” and blurring the boundary between reality and fiction.

 


The playwright/director SUNG Hou-Kuan of Taipei Seagull Theatre was moved to tears when accepting the award. He said that although people have found this production special, calling it a cross-over production of traditional Taiwanese opera and modern theater, it is indeed a production of traditional Taiwanese opera to him because the reality of the current Taiwanese opera stems from mixing the traditional and the modern. In the past, he often called himself an outsider of traditional Taiwanese opera. Now, he hoped that the little contribution from this production could become part of the future life informed by traditional Taiwanese arts.

 

The jury comments on this work, stating that Who’s Koxinga? utilizes a quadripartite structure of time and space, prompting a multifaceted discourse on the leader of the first Han Chinese regime in Taiwan, Koxinga. With a fantastical and enigmatic setting, the production employs an onion-like narrative that peels layer by layer. The appearing and disappearing of historical figures, drawn from diverse periods and perspectives, interweave their voices within the dialogues, creating a bizarre and bustling stage. Through their masterful performances, the two actors elevate the drama into an indelible experience. The play exhibits an echoic structure, where the beginning resonates with the end, unlocking the full potential of narrative in traditional Taiwanese opera. On the basis of traditional artistic techniques, it ventures into innovative experimentation and historical reflection.”


 

The 22nd Taishin Arts Award – the Performing Arts Award Who’s Koxinga? by Taipei Seagull Theatre, Photo by LIN Yu-Quan


The Grand Prize announced lastly is awarded to Apostating Time, co-produced by approaching theatre and Gang-a Tsui Theater. The work re-imagines and re-arranges a classic Nanguan piece through contemporary acoustic design. The actors’ movements are developed based on the traditional Liyuan dance called “Kebu”. The storyline is woven with historical and modern narrative threads in a non-linear manner to juxtapose the mirroring life stories of a defected political victim and a loyal official in the Southern Song dynasty, carefully and thoroughly portraying people’s circumstances of survival inflicted by diaspora and dilemmas.



Gang-a-tsui Theater won the Performing Arts Award of the 5th Taishin Arts Award with Zhu Wen Elopes with the Ghost. This time, their co-production with approaching theatre wins the Grand Prize again. When receiving the award, the playwright/director of approaching theatre KOH Choon-Eiow joked and stated that “just a few days ago, we were saying that if we were lucky enough to win the award, perhaps we should change the name of the theatre company,” creating a burst of laughter in the ceremony. (*The Mandarin name of the theatre company, while denoting approaching the ultimate, also means “poverty.”) KOH stated that it has not been easy for this production, co-produced by the two theatre companies and with the support of the National Taichung Theater and the Taiwan Traditional Theatre Center, to reach today’s success since its launch in 2021. He thanked all the artists and colleagues who have participated in the co-production and the acceptance of this society for allowing the subject of political trauma to be seen.



Regarding this work, the jury says: “The audience is compelled to confront the reverberations of political intrigue and the tough choices in life amidst the melodies of Nanguan, an ancient musical genre from Quanzhou (China), and the stage action. Through a meticulously crafted narrative structure, Apostating Time delves into the historical predicaments and transforms profound introspection into heartfelt criticism to reflect the fragility and complexity of human nature. The artistic mastery is evident in the production's calm yet powerful fusion of Nanguan (Liyuan) opera and modern theater. By harmonizing the overall performance with the fluidity of forms, the production explores the latent language between these theatrical genres. “approaching theatre” and “Gang-a Tsui Theater” demonstrates remarkable courage in this collaboration to illuminate the unbearable weight of life with such artistic dialectics, and ultimately reveals more possibilities for contemporary theatre.”.


The 22nd Taishin Arts Award – Chairman of Taishin Holdings Thomas T.L. Wu presents the Grand Prize to the production groups of “approaching theatre” and “Gang-a Tsui Theater”

The 22nd Taishin Arts Award – the Grand Prize Apostating Time by approaching theatre & Gang-a Tsui Theater, Photo by Lin Yu-Quan


The Final Selection Jury chairperson LIN Ho-Yi emphasized that the Taishin Arts Award’s commitment to art and its corresponding adjustments reflect the current ideologies and discussions within the contemporary art scene. The tears of joy shed by SUNG Hou-Kuan from Taipei Seagull Theatre affirm the significance of the Award to all artists. It not only represents an individual’s triumph but also the hard-earned accomplishment of a group of people. This is what the Award means to artists. From another standpoint, the Award is also characterized by the winning works, which embody the perspectives and standards upheld by the Award. It is evident the pursuit of the Award will persist for everyone.

 


The award ceremony this year was coordinated and directed by theatre director SU Yang-Cheng from How to Eat Faust while being hosted by TV and theatre actor CHEN Chia-Kuei. Based on the idea of “cross-over,” two experienced performers from different theatre companies were invited to produce the ceremony: They are HSIAO Tung-Yi from HaoxHsiaoTroupe and French performer Camille Trebuchet from Theatre De La Sardine; and the Taishin Arts Award ceremony marks their first collaboration. Together with the host and live music performance, their witty repartees that blended materials based on art and cultural news events from last year, humorous double entendres, and the bittersweetness in the life and work of art and cultural workers, immersed the audience in laughter and added lightheartedness to the ceremony. 



For comprehensive information about all the shortlisted works and the award winners, please visit the 22nd Taishin Arts Award webpage on the Taishin Bank Foundation for Arts and Culture website.


The 22nd Taishin Arts Award – The laureates of the three Awards have a group photo with the board directors of the Taishin Bank Foundation for Arts and Culture, and the Taishin Arts Award jurors


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The full-length video of the award ceremony: https://youtube.com/live/mNNDFiOGdxk?feature=share

The 22nd Taishin Arts Award webpage: https://www.taishinart.org.tw/art-award-year-works/2023

The Taishin Bank Foundation for Arts and Culture Facebook fan page: https://www.facebook.com/TAISHINART/

 

Taishin Arts Award— Special Talks with International Jurors

Facing Art—On Managing Arts Institutions

Taishin Arts Award— Special Talks with International Jurors

Facing Art—On Managing Arts Institutions

Date:2024, June 2nd, Sunday at 14:00-16:30

Venue:Yuan Hall, Taishin Tower (2F, NO.118, Sec. 4, Ren-Ai Rd, Taipei City)


Part I

Speaker:Matthias Mohr (Artistic Direction and Executive Director, Radialsystem, Berlin, Germany)

Moderator:KENG Yi-Wei (Curator, Dramaturg of National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts Weiwuying)

               

Part 2

Speaker:Rhana Devenport ONZM (Director of Art Gallery of South Australia in Adelaide)

Moderator:LEE Yulin (Board of the Taishin Bank Foundation for Arts and Culture, Former Director of Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts)

               

Matthias Mohr, who has years of experience as a dramaturge and curator, is the director of Radialsystem, an art center converted from a water pumping station by the river Spree. Since he assumed the post of director in 2018, Mohr has concentrated on developing interdisciplinary projects of dance, visual arts, and music informed by experimentality and contemporaneity while facilitating dialogues and collaborations with artists from different backgrounds, forms of body training, and modes of thinking to seek new narratives in artistic creation. 

 

Rhana Devenport is an Australia-based curator, writer, and cultural producer whose career has spanned art museums, festivals, biennials, and cultural organizations for over thirty years. In her talk, Devenport will share her experience of managing the art institution she currently works at, along with the principles that guide it. She will also discuss her experience of collaborating with artists from different countries and disciplines. 

 

※Simultaneous English interpretation is provided 

(Personal ID required for renting interpretation equipment.)


◎ This is a free event, please register in advanced.


About the Speakers

Matthias Mohr

Artistic Direction and Executive Director, Radialsystem, Berlin, Germany



Matthias Mohr is a German-Colombian curator and dramaturge. He has been artistic director of Radialsystem in Berlin since 2018 as well as managing director since 2024. His curatorial work focuses on questioning dominant narratives within representative forms of culture. As a dramaturge and artistic collaborator, he has a long-standing collaboration with the composer and music theatre maker Heiner Goebbels. From 2012-2014, he was part of the Ruhrtriennale programme team and subsequently worked as a dramaturge for PACT Zollverein with a focus on dance and performance. There he cooperatively developed experimental transdisciplinary formats that centred on the exchange between different fields of knowledge and artistic practices. He has also staged contemporary music theatre performances at the ZKM Karlsruhe, the ECLAT festival in Stuttgart and the KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen in Hanover, among others.


Rhana Devenport ONZM

Director of Art Gallery of South Australia in Adelaide


Photo by Saul Steed

Rhana Devenport ONZM is Director of Art Gallery of South Australia in Adelaide. She was previously Director of the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki and Govett-Brewster Art Gallery / Len Lye Centre in Aotearoa New Zealand. She has held positions with the Biennale of Sydney and Sydney Festival, and was Senior Project Officer with the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT) at Queensland Art Gallery in Brisbane, Australia from 1994 to 2004. Rhana was a Curatorial Advisor for the Aichi Triennale 2022: Still Alive and has curated many exhibitions with a focus on Asia, the Pacific, and time-based art including Robert Wilson: Moving Portraits and Nalini Malani: Gamepieces in 2023. In 2021 she edited a major monograph on Thai artist Pinaree Sanpitak. Internationally Rhana contributes to advisory and selection committees including the Mori Art Museum International Advisory Committee. In 2017 Rhana was the Curator for New Zealand’s Pavilion at the Biennale Arte in Venice with ‘Lisa Reihana: Emissaries'. In 2018 she received The New Zealand of Merit by Her Majesty the Queenfor contribution to arts governance.



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17 Works Shortlisted for the 22nd Taishin Arts Awards

Eight Visual Arts Works and Nine Performing Arts Works Vie for Top Three Awards

17 Works Shortlisted for the 22nd Taishin Arts Awards

17 Works Shortlisted for the 22nd Taishin Arts Awards

Eight Visual Arts Works and Nine Performing Arts Works Vie for Top Three Awards

 

The 22nd Taishin Arts Award has unveiled a shortlist, the result of an exhaustive selection process by a panel of nine nominating jurors: LIN Yi-Hsiu, SUN Ping, CHEN Pin-Hsiu, CHEN Kuan-Yu, HSU Jen-Hao, ZHANG You-Sheng, CHANG Ching-Wen, CHANG Yun-Ting, and HUANG Ya-Li. Throughout 2023, these jurors attended performances, submitted critiques, and made independent nominations quarterly. Following thorough discussions, they narrowed down 114 submissions to 17 exceptional finalists. These finalists will contend for two primary awards: the Visual Arts Award and the Performing Arts Award, each accompanied by a prize of 1 million New Taiwan Dollars (NT$). In addition, the competition features the prestigious "Annual Grand Prize," valued at NT$1.5 million, recognizing outstanding achievement across categories.

 

Among the 17 shortlisted works, there are eight in the visual arts category and nine in the performing arts category. Notably, seven of the performing arts nominations are for new drama/opera productions, reaching an unprecedented number and signaling a shift away from the long-standing dominance of physical theater and non-verbal performances. Many works blend traditional elements, such as Taiwanese opera, Nanguan music, puppetry, soul-guiding songs, and model operas, with contemporary theater aesthetics. They engage audiences in historical dialectics, discussions on diverse issues, and reflections on transforming social consciousness and values. The two nominated dance performances integrate, confront, and connect disparate elements and energies to interpret contemplations on life and corporeality.

 

Among the eight visual art finalists are four solo exhibitions and two group exhibitions. These creators use a variety of forms — images, objects, field research, and workshops — to critique the power dynamics behind historical narratives, image production, and transnational economics. They attempt to capture dispersed memories of past epochs or employ painting to offer unique perspectives on contemporary life. The remaining two finalists involve major art festival curations that have effectively integrated public sector support with local engagement. Their multi-layered artistic endeavors enhance local initiatives and have been recognized by the selection committee for their impactful contributions.

 

The 22nd Taishin Arts Award Finalists   


Visual Arts Works

「    」Ciou Zih-Yan Solo Exhibition/ CIOU Zih-Yan

One Thousand Names of Zeng-Wen River—2022 Mattauw Triennial/ GONG Jow-Jiun (Team representative) 

Re-Present: Kao Chung-Li/ KAO Chung-Li

Made in Lucky/ LI Cheng-Liang, TSAI Pou-Ching (featured in the “Signal Z”)

Banana Coin Project/ LI Kuei-Pi

From Nowhere to Now Here/ Eva LIN, Chihiro MINATO, TSOU Ting, FENG Hsin (featured in the 2023 Romantic Route 3 Art Festival)

Ký Túc Xá (Dorm)/ Your Bros. Filmmaking Group (featured in the 2023 International Techno Art Exhibition “Are You Working Now?”) 

Best Place Map Series: Solo Exhibition of Qi-Heng Xiao/ XIAO Qi-Heng

 

Performing Arts Works

The Plague of Revenge/ Yi-Shin Taiwanese Opera Troupe (2023 Taiwan Traditional Theatre Festival)

Re-Fracture/ YEH Yu-Hsuan, CHENG Dao-Yuan, HSIAO Yu-Li (NTT X C-LAB - 2023 C-LAB Diversonics)

Who’s Koxinga ?/ Taipei Seagull Theatre

qalang ima’/ Shakespeare's Wild Sisters Group

Dream of Becoming/ Taipei Puppet Theater (2023 Keep on Dreaming)

Apostating Time/ approaching theatre & Gang-a Tsui Theater (2023 Taiwan Traditional Theatre Festival, 2023 NTT Fall for Great Souls)

Double Edges/ Bare Feet Dance Theatre x LIU Yun x LIU Chun-Te

Man of the Theatre/ HUANG Yu-Ching & Myan Myan Studio (2023 Taiwan International Festival of Arts (TIFA))

Don’t Cry, Dancing Girls/ VMTheatre Company

 

A final selection from the 17 shortlisted works will take place at the end of May, culminating in an awards ceremony on June 1st, where the recipients of the three major awards will be unveiled. To further public understanding and engagement with the shortlisted works, the Taishin Bank Foundation for Arts and Culture will organize a variety of promotional activities through April and May. Events will include audio-visual presentations, media interviews, a video exhibition in the first-floor lobby of the Taishin Tower, the "Four Rolling Nights – Meet the Artists" event, and online voting for the “Audience Choice Winner". We welcome members of the public to connect with the Foundation's official website and Facebook page for the latest updates and information.

 

The 22nd Taishin Arts Award Comments on the Finalists

「  」Ciou Zih-Yan Solo Exhibition / CIOU Zih-Yan

Through constructed scenes, rearranged stories, and performances, the artist reveals different approaches to viewing while responding to history and his own life experiences, pointing out the absent sense of history in the generation of people born around the lifting of martial law. The techniques of video creation demonstrate a sensibility-based perspective to writing and depicting history. Using these techniques, the artist shows and reminds us of the necessary alertness in terms of viewing past narratives. How history and perception can be manipulated through construction becomes the central idea of this exhibition. All the scenes in the videos and installations are interlaced and layered, portraying multifacetedly the quintessential attitude of remaining “hollow” when dealing with history or politics—only through such attitude can actions become possible. (Commentator: CHANG Ching-Wen)

 

One Thousand Names of Zeng-Wen River—2022 Mattauw Earth Triennial / GONG Jow-Jiun, GONG Yih-Jau, HUNG Shu-Ching, KUO Chia-Ling, HUNG Yu-Cheng, YANG Chih-Pin, CHEN Kuan-Chang, SHEN Chao-Liang, HUANG Ching-Yin, WU Ke-Wei, TSAI Yu-Jou, LIN Fang-Yi, Nakaw Putun, LO Chien-Yu

 

This project uses a rather distinctive method of curatorial research and work development. Although it is an art festival hosted by the local government, it does not advocate any specific policy. Instead, the art festival is able to unite and expand the resources and support in more diverse forms to investigate environmental issues and suggest initiatives from artistic perspectives. Using Zheng-wen River as a lead-in, the art festival is carried out through long periods of in-depth fieldwork to freely create possible connections between people and things. Meanwhile, it incorporates a reflective consciousness of river basin governance that involves culture, hydrology, biology, and environmental texture to unfold a three-year-long process comprising observation, research, exchange, fieldwork, and publication, gradually forming the meaning of dialogues between “all living things” and their potential influences. (Commentator: CHEN Kuan-Yu)

 

Re-Present: Kao Chung-Li / KAO Chung-Li

KAO Chung-Li endlessly explores the forms of cinematic production, the ways of image formation, and the prototype experience of human visual perception. Through remaking and reconstruction of existing and standardized equipment, he aims to expose how a cognitive mechanism of the image is imperceptibly embedded in individual lives as well as our collective consciousness throughout the imperialist and capitalist expansion and the long-term conditioning of an image production system in Taiwan. Meanwhile, he employs left-wing thinking and a theoretical introduction to “Third Cinema” to construct a cold and accusative image/sound language to criticize the structural origin of image production. Persisting with the idea of “winning our own image machine,” his work is a resilient statement about and an endeavor to construct a viewing/image subject that is our own. (Commentator: HUANG Ya-Li)

 

Made in Lucky / LI Cheng-Liang, TSAI Pou-Ching (featured in the “Signal Z”)

TSAI Pou-Ching and LI Cheng-Liang dismantled an old signboard of “Lucky” from around the Tainan Train Station and exhibited it in the exhibition, Signal Z. The LED installation emits iridescent colors regularly and includes “Lucky” stereo sets collected from various channels that broadcast sounds and music arranged by FENG Zi-Ming. The newly arranged renditions of old popular songs alter the ambiance around objects and the quality of the space. The work revolves around the financial crisis in 2009 thematically, which is not only a revisit to the news event but also an archaeological attempt to investigate the body that resonates with broadcast media and music, as well as the life memories of many people. Linking the old “Lucky” signboard from a real landscape with a traumatic history involving the development of Taiwan’s industry, the work re-evaluates historical remnants through a contemporary perspective and releases a force of nostalgically charged sensibility that utters an active meaning of this era. (Commentator: CHEN Kuan-Yu)

 

Banana Coin Project / LI Kuei-Pi

In the exhibition, the banana is used as a symbol embedded in the historical context of colonial economy, which continues LI Kuei-Pi’s long-term investigation of transborder economic activities and colonial economy. Starting with field research, the artist does not stop at recounting events and displaying documents but rather demonstrates multiple perspectives to approach the events through a multitemporal and real-virtual juxtaposition of sculptures, video installations, food, online games, and an auction mechanism. At the same time, the auctioning of the banana coins directs the audience’s attention to the manmade factors in the economic system. Through a circuitous yet powerful way, the exhibition brings back the history of colonial currency and evokes the memory of resource plundering and the economic production of colonial empires. (Commentator: CHANG Yun-Ting)

 

From Nowhere to Now Here/ Eva LIN, Chihiro MINATO, TSOU Ting, FENG Hsin (featured in The 2023 Romantic Route 3 Art Festival)

Through the conceptual lens of “from nowhere to now here,” the curatorial team re-reads the various historical periods, ethnic territories, individual memories, and economic activities along Taiwan Route 3. The exhibition encompasses a geographical area that includes twelve townships and villages respectively in four counties and cities. Collaborating with dozens of artists/art groups, they conduct residency-based research and carry out art projects in situ. The team also thoroughly teases out and reflects on relevant issues in this art festival hosted by the local government. Working with the artists through discussions to co-develop their projects, the works unfurl rich textural layers. Through the residencies and the artworks in situ, interactions and sharing between artists and local creative teams are made possible, and a new approach to narratives through creation emerges. Even after the art festival ends, some of the artworks continue to exert their artistic power locally. (Commentator: LIN Yi-Hsiu)

 

Ký Túc Xá (Dorm) / Your Bros. Filmmaking Group (featured in the 2023 International Techno Art Exhibition “Are You Working Now?”)

 

The practice of Your Bros. Filmmaking Group has long engaged in issues related to laborers and transnational migrant workers in contemporary times. Through open calls for performers, ongoing private book readings, and workshops, their work embodies the idea of decentralization and engages collaborators in extensive discussion and sharing sessions to slowly co-create the narrative texts of videos and films. This work builds upon their previous film, titled Ký Túc Xá (Dorm), and converts concerned topics, co-created materials, and unfilmed sites into a spatial installation. The characters in the previous film are also turned into those working behind the camera to further extend the team’s work processes into a dual scene through a plastic approach, which can be both read and perceived in the same space by the audience. (Commentator: LIN Yi-Hsiu)

 

Best Place Map Series: Solo Exhibition of Qi-Heng Xiao / Xiao Qi-Heng

The artist proposes a unique perspective of viewing contemporary life through painting, which delineates a personal sense of place, characteristic of the internet generation and mapped through the use of cellphones and by one’s feet, conveying feelings through scenes in a highly idiosyncratic style. The dense brushstrokes and filled images further increase the tension of the paintings and give meanings to ordinary, insignificant sceneries, treating them as personal landmarks. Through painting, the artist highlights the fact that the universal and conceptual quality of maps is no longer emphasized in this era. Instead, maps are embedded with divergent meanings created by individuals. These images, connecting places and body relations, are mixed with fantasies and transfigurations, transforming long periods of private time with these locations into sensory memories that are more lasting than simply taking check-in pictures. (Commentator: CHANG Ching-Wen)

 

The Plague of Revenge / Yi Shin Taiwanese Opera Troupe (2023 Taiwan Traditional Theatre Festival)

LEE Yi-Hsiu, the playwright of The Plague of Revenge, combines various elements of Greek tragedies and elevates traditional questions of ethics to a philosophical level of fate. FU Yu-Hui, who directs the work, introduces different approaches to modern theater and uses mise-en-scène and actors’ body expressions to create a tragic sense of metaphysical rituals, delineating the working of the characters’ psyche and the subtext underlying their relationships in this traditional theatrical production. SUN Shih-Pei and SUN Shih-Yung perform the roles of Zhou Ren and his son in a magnificent manner and with vivid layers. Their virtuosity successfully brings together a traditional performance with an innovatively modern style. Overall, The Plague of Revenge is an entertaining new-style Taiwanese opera with great depth. After the three-year pandemic that forced people to be self-preserving, this production engages the audience in rethinking the traditional values of benevolence and righteousness. (Commentator: HSU Jen-Hao)

 

Re-Fracture/ YEH Yu-Hsuan, CHENG Dao-Yuan, HSIAO Yu-Li (NTT X C-LAB - 2023 C-LAB Diversonics)

The creative team uses the dissipating and changing effect of dance, sound, and installation to respond as well as to reflect on fractured symbolic meaning and aesthetic techniques, portraying the relationship between material disappearance and withering lives. From the phenomenon and appearances of dilapidation, the work unveils the ambiguous aura of the humanistic spirit. The production has audience members move amidst spatial-temporal fragments and directs their attention to how the body, material, or their chaotic and organic encounter produces deep and dark imagination and dialectics through an abstract art language. The audiences also indirectly step upon the fracture between materialism and idealism during this experience, along with the chances and impermanence in life hiding in the depth of this apocalyptic fable. (Commentator: SUN Ping)

 

Who’s Koxinga? / Taipei Seagull Theatre

 

Among the theatrical productions featuring the topic of Koxinga, this production is a rather special one. On the one hand, the story depicts life in a theatre troupe in the early days so that the audiences get a glimpse of the hardship when the Kingdom of Tungning was initially founded three centuries ago. On the other hand, the piece portrays actors’ thoughts in contemporary times, enabling us to understand the decline of traditional theater today and its inevitable and much needed transformation. However, the playwright and the director are not satisfied with only this juxtaposition, but view this play as a corridor connecting “the present and the past” as well as the space between “dreaming and wakefulness.” The beginning and the end of the narrative echo and complement each other, making the viewing experience even more fantastic and incredible. Through blending traditional and contemporary theater, the entire production links the history of the Zheng dynasty and Taiwan’s status quo, which is indeed ingenious and caters to both refined and popular tastes. (Commentator: CHANG You-Sheng)

 

qalang ima’ / Shakespeare's Wild Sisters Group

 

Using stereotypical characters and the arrangement of plots, the production mixes humor, trauma, ridicule, and tears to weave together the characters and realistic predicaments of the indigenous people in a lighthearted manner, engendering the possibility of dialogues. Through a stereotypical approach to performance, the work gradually increases the tension between tourism performance and modern theater. The simple, comprehensible lines of daily conversations subtly but sharply expose the power and cultural structures as well as the existing or ongoing stereotypes in Taiwanese society. This work also reflects vividly the contemporary situation resulting from the colonial past and now faced by different ethnic groups together in the structural system informed by the ideas of identity and nationalism. Thus, this work offers an exceedingly sincere understanding and an alternative way to deal with the issues related to indigenous culture. (Commentator: HUANG Ya-Li)

 

Dream of Becoming/ Taipei Puppet Theater (2023 Keep on Dreaming)

In the form of a time-travel story, the script and directing of this production unveil a non-typical historical dialectic and focus on the complex colonial and cultural relations embodied by the “Japanized glove puppetry,” constructing a mesmerizing space-time that allows us to revisit the artistic depth and diverse expression of puppet theater. The piece revolves around how the clever strategy regarding puppet theater proposed by the literatus HUANG Te-Shih, as well as the negotiation of aesthetic techniques involved in the process of the Taiwanese-Japanese cultural struggle, successfully subverted the ban on the performance of puppet theater. The production not only integrates the fluent deployment of performance and the structural tension, allowing the form and spirit of puppet theater to permeate each other, but also highlights the energy and meaning of the backstage music. The moral ideas are effortlessly conveyed without their heaviness between moments of repartee and singing, easily connecting the long-established tradition and contemporary creativity. (Commentator: SUN Ping)

 

Apostating Time/ approaching theatre & Gang-a Tsui Theater (2023 Taiwan Traditional Theatre Festival, 2023 NTT Fall for Great Souls)

Apostating Time borrows the forms of Liyuan opera and avant-garde theater, which become inter-referencing in the production, and visualizes the temporal dimension in the foreground as an intervening element that represents memory. From the mise-en-scène on the stage and movement choices, the playwright and director find the connection between the body techniques in modern performance and Liyuan opera. The anachronistic feeling of representing the trauma memories of contemporary politics is linked with ZHU Bian’s text of Liyuan opera through the performance of a highly physical form. The performance of historical memories by the actors shatters the assumption of a single space-time on the stage. Meanwhile, the creation of space-time depends entirely on the actors’ body techniques. When not performing their roles, they become the medium of specters, moving between the past and the present before eventually going through the fissure of the represented space-time and entering the psychological depth of history’s specters. (Commentator: HSU Jen-Hao)

 

Double Edges/ Bare Feet Dance Theatre x LIU Yun x LIU Chun-Te

 

The two choreographers, LIU Yun and LIU Jun-De, start separately from the traditional body techniques of martial art and guqin (Chinese zither) to deconstruct the programmed body techniques. They use two solo dances to resolutely demonstrate their attempt at re-exploring the origin of physical momentum and reconstructing the logic of body movement, creating the body language of a unique style. The “human,” symbolized by the dancers’ bodies, and the “object,” symbolized by wooden objects representing the natural environment – the zither and the drum or the boat and the island – constantly collide, challenge, merge, and interrupt, not only showing the audience the cumulative, developing creative process and the conversion of energy but also the thinking of “the Asian body.” It is a way of perceiving life: Humans do not exist in this world alone but in a constant state of co-existing and conversing with nature. (Commentator: CHEN Pin-Hsiu)

 

Man of the Theatre/ HUANG Yu-Ching & Myan Myan Studio (2023 Taiwan International Festival of Arts (TIFA))

 

This production revolves around a male director’s power-based sexual assaults on female actors and relentlessly exposes the ecosystem of the theater circle, along with its hidden accomplice structure. The first and the second acts are respectively staged in a dark rehearsal room and a bright, cozy apartment, showing the happening of the assaults and the life after the crimes. The piece layers multiple realities: the characters and plots in the rehearsed text are woven with the real power and desire of the actors; whereas the reality of the audience is also drawn into the performance by the proscenium stage. The double structure of the stage shows the struggle between the realistic self and the idealistic self in a synchronous way, revealing the complicated life situations of the survivors while referencing the issue of women’s self-identity in a world of male dominance. (Commentator: CHANG Yun-Ting)

 

Don’t Cry, Dancing Girls/ VMTheatre Company

 

The story is set in Yunlin and portrays the lives and interactions between three sisters who depend on each other, before depicting how they gradually let go of their issues about their father, family, and the local tradition. It is a bittersweet process that makes the audience laugh and cry. The religious ritual at the end is recreated in a crafted manner, which not only ties up the plot lines of the story but also demonstrates the formal ornateness and solemnity of the ritual. The pace of the funeral procession to send off the father reveals a sense of unwillingness, filling the farewell with reluctance and remembrance. Even though some parts of the piece remain to be discussed in terms of script development and character design, as a musical in Chinese incorporated with the traditional soul-guiding ceremony, the overall production is fluent, rare, and refreshing, with merits that outweigh the flaws. No wonder it is a piece on everyone’s lips. (Commentator: CHANG You-Sheng)

 

 

Photo credits: 

     Ciou Zih-Yan Solo Exhibition (video screenshot, photo by CIOU Zih-Yan )


Ka mawaxa ta teni, featured in the “One Thousand Names of Zeng-Wen River—2022 Mattauw Triennial” (Photo by LIU Che-An)

 Data Cowboy/ Loin de l’ Ukraine, featured in “Re-Present: Kao Chung-Li” (photo by Taipei Fina Arts Museum)

Made in Lucky by LI Cheng-Liang, TSAI Pou-Ching (photo by WANG Hsih-Bang)Banana Coin Project by LI Kuei-Pi (photo by WANG Cheng-Hsiang)Looking towards the Home by LIAO Chien-Chung, featured in the “From Nowhere to Now Here” (photo by HSU Yung-LUN)Ký Túc Xá (Dorm) (photo by Your Bros. Filmmaking Group)Best Place Map Series : Solo Exhibition of Qi-Heng Xiao (photo by XIAO Qi-Heng)The Plague of Revenge by Yi-Shin Taiwanese Opera Troupe (photo by HSU Ching-Ming)Re-Fracture by YEH Yu-Hsuan, CHENG Dao-Yuan, HSIAO Yu-Li (photo by OU Po-Hao)Who’s Koxinga ? by Taipei Seagull Theatre (photo by LIN Yu-Chuan)qalang ima’ by Shakespeare's Wild Sisters Group (photo by LIN Yu-Chuan)Dream of Becoming by Taipei Puppet Theater (photo by LIN Yu-Chuan)Apostating Time by approaching theatre & Gang-a Tsui Theater(photo by KANG Chih-Hao)Double Edges by Bare Feet Dance Theatre x LIU Yun x LIU Chun-Te (photo by HSU Bing)Man of the Theatre by HUANG Yu-Ching & Myan Myan Studio (photo by TANG Chien-Che)Don’t Cry, Dancing Girls by VMTheatre Company (photo courtesy of National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts Weiwuying)