Taishin Bank Foundation for Arts and Culture

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 22^nd 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 22^nd 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 22^nd 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 22^nd 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/