台新銀行文化藝術基金會

圖說：第十五屆台新藝術獎頒獎典禮-藝術基金會創辦人吳東亮先生頒發大獎予許家維

標舉突破框架，富含跨界溝通及跨域探索精神的「年度大獎」，則由【許家維《回莫村》】從十九組入圍作品中獲得桂冠。評選團一致認為：「《回莫村》以強烈的人文關注和跨文化特質，探討冷戰時期國際政治角力下，泰緬邊界一段歷史秘辛與一群被遺忘的人，並置了此地與他方、真實與虛擬，形成一個充滿魅力的複雜文本。許家維長期關注地緣政治，以不同座標映射台灣歷史的外圍。作品成功地融合了紀錄片、偶戲、舞蹈、文學、歷史與田調等複雜元素，形構豐富語彙，打開觀眾對事件的理解與想像，令人動容。」

本屆台新藝術獎由吳瑪悧、張曉雄、鴻鴻、陳貺怡四位國內代表，以及奧地利林茲OK當代藝術中心館長馬丁．史圖 (Martin Sturm)、新加坡國際藝術節總監王景生(Ong Keng Sen)、澳洲雪梨Performance Space藝術總監傑夫．可汗 (Jeff Khan)等七人組成決選團，歷經三日的會議，選出三大獎得主，包括「年度大獎」一百五十萬元獎金、「表演」及「視覺」藝術獎各得一百萬元獎金。

今年頒獎典禮特別邀請動見体劇團符宏征導演擔任節目總監，由「栢優座」劇團許栢昂與黃宇琳青年夫妻檔擔任雙主持，以戲曲雙簧為主持形式，兩人一搭一唱默契十足；表演節目則邀請青年打擊樂家陳易，以及劇場演員劉冠廷、呂名堯，改編演出法國Compagnie Kahlua樂團原創作品「這不是一顆球」，詼諧且創意的演出，為緊張的氣氛增添輕鬆快意的氣氛。

首次為當屆設置的「第15屆台新藝術獎」專屬網站，以線上「影音資料庫」的概念，透過入圍藝術家影音及文字訪談，讓更多人認識去年在台灣發生、富含美學高度的傑出展演作品，並與UDN聯合影音網合作，直播及錄存頒獎典禮實況，歡迎各界上網關注藝術獎最新消息及藝術家的創作記錄。

第15屆台新藝術獎專網：http://15award.taishinart.org.tw/

第15屆台新藝術獎頒獎典禮現場直播連結：https://youtu.be/Lie3ob5DxnU

第15屆台新藝術獎頒獎典禮側記：http://talks.taishinart.org.tw/award/bulletin/2017051802

Winners of the 15^th Taishin Visual Arts Award, Performing Arts Award and Annual Grand Prize Announced

The prestigious Taiwanese contemporary arts award, Taishin Arts Award, honors innovative imagination in arts and aims to create a platform for dialogues between different disciplines. On May 13, 2017, guests from the culture and art circles as well as the corporate sector attended the award ceremony, during which the award winners were announced. This year, the winners are:

Taishin Visual Arts Award:

THE BLACK WAVES─Ghost Mountain Ghost Shovel Art Collective, HUANG Ya-li, XIE Zhongqi, LipingLiping, LIU Fang-yi, LEE Shih-yang (NT$ 1 million monetary award).

Taishin Performing Arts Award:

Kids─LIU Kuan Hsiang (NT$ 1 million monetary award).

Taishin Annual Grand Prize:

 Huai Mo Village─Chia-Wei HSU (NT$ 1.5 million monetary award).

The chairman of the Taishin Bank Foundation for Arts and Culture, Mr. Simon CHENG, gave an opening speech at the ceremony, stating that the importance of the Taishin Arts Award has greatly exceeded the presentation of the Award. It encourages interdisciplinary dialogues with its distinctive and transparent system of selection, introduces remarkable works to the public through art criticism, and generates discussions about arts and the essence of artistic creation in society in the process.

After three years of selecting winners in an unclassified manner, re-considering the differences inherent to different types of arts, the Award has accepted suggestions from various fields and re-adopted the classification of "visual arts" and "performing arts." The Award, however, retains the "Annual Grand Prize" to honor the indiscriminating spirit of art, to reflect the interdisciplinary trend in contemporary art, and to stimulate more and greater possibilities in artistic creation.

The first award announced in the ceremony was the "Visual Arts Award," which went to THE BLACK WAVES for its outstanding artistry as well as manifestation of innovative thinking, fresh vision and new direction of expression. The work, co-created by Ghost Mountain Ghost Shovel Art Collective, HUANG Ya-li, XIE Zhongqi, LipingLiping, LIU Fang-yi, LEE Shih-yang, started with an avant-garde visual concept and was performed at Rose Historic Site—Tsai Jui-yueh Dance Research Institute. The jury committee thus commented, "THE BLACK WAVES is a moving live art project that allows us to contemplate a forgotten history of Taiwan, when the European avant-garde arrived through the lens of Japan. The dynamic retrieval in this art work is particularly outstanding for its strategies of reenactment and invention. The powerful spontaneous eruption of poetry, gymnastics, image and sound art reveals a complex moment of the literary landscape of Taiwan, the Le Moulin Poetry Society. The final manifestation from intense research into art archives becomes an exemplary transformation of contemporary interdisciplinary expression in a historical site, bridging two moments in time."

The “Performing Arts Award,” with an emphasis on overall production, masterful artistic performance and creativity, went to choreographer and dancer LIU Kuan Hsiang, who produced Kids at Cloud Gate Theater. The work has won the favor of the jury committee that gave the following praises about the work: "Kids presents the exuberance of life in the valley of death. This work draws on and goes beyond the choreographer’s personal experience facing death to meditate on the ever-present issue of mortality that haunts humanity. It demonstrates the choreographer’s rational meticulousness and calmness in the form of almost delirious ritual, enabling the audience to witness the sublimation in wild and irrational scenes. The choreographer creates abundant and abstract images on the stage with highly original body language and distilled theatre elements. The audio recording of a dialogue between him and his late mother is transformed into a wondrous soundscape, intensifying the explosive, layered and impressive performance by three excellent dancers."

The "Annual Grand Prize" upholds the ideal of breaking through existing frames and honors the spirit of interdisciplinary exchange and exploration. This year, among the nineteen finalists, the jury committee gave the prize to Chia-Wei HSU's Huai Mo Village, and unanimously agreed that "Huai Mo Village is awarded the grand prize for its artistry, its strong humanitarian concern and cross-cultural features, juxtaposing this place and the other place, reality and virtuality. HSU Chia Wei creates an engaging, complex universe that opens up understanding and imagination of geopolitical events, with their continuing ramifications on human beings through time. Huai Mo Village discusses a secret history and forgotten people resulting from the political struggles of the Cold War, at the border of Thailand and Myanmar. HSU, who is an outsider in this context, collaborates with the protagonists to collectively author their narrative. The protagonists are confessors and interrogators, with the viewers being suspended in an impossible return."

The Award's final selection jury committee this year was formed by four Taiwanese jurors, including WU Mali, ZHANG Xiao-Xiong, Hung Hung, and CHEN Kuang-Yi, and three international jurors, including the Director of the OK Offenes Kulturhaus Oberösterreich, Linz, Austria, Martin Sturm, the Festival Director of the Singapore International Festival of Arts, Ong Keng Sen, and the Artistic Director of Performance Space, Sydney, Australia, Jeff Khan. After three days of meetings and discussions, the jurors selected the three winners of the "Annual Grand Prize" for the NT$ 1.5 million prize money, the "Performing Arts Award" and the "Visual Arts Award for the NT$ 1 million prize money each.

For the award ceremony this year, FU Hong Zheng, the director of M.O.V.E. Theatre was invited to be the program director. The young performer couple of Po You Set, HSU Po-Ang and HUANG Yulin, hosted the ceremony in the manner of Chinese opera two-man comic act, showing great chemistry with their witty repartee. Young percussionist, CHEN Yi, and theatre performers, LIU Kuan-Ting and LU Ming-Yao, adapted and performed This is Not a Ball, an original work of the French band, Compagnie Kahlua. The humorous and creative performance eased the nervous atmosphere and added a sense of relaxedness and amusement to the ceremony.

A customized website for the 15^th Taishin Arts Award was established this year. Based on the concept of an "online archive," the website introduced to more people the excellent and aesthetically charged exhibitions and performances realized in Taiwan last year through the videos and transcripts of the finalists' interviews. The Award also collaborated with UDN Video to broadcast and record the award ceremony. The Taishin Foundation welcomes all to go online and check out the latest news about the Award and the documentation of the artists' creative work. For the website of the 15^th Taishin Arts Award, go to: http://15award.taishinart.org.tw/