Starting Monday, Cafe 2.31 will turn into a world of mannequins, stray dogs and party animals. The strange mix are some of the objects in the snapshots by Yuan Cho-ping (袁哲彬) that make up his "1.30 Will Survive" photo exhibition at this cafe-cum-occasional art space.
As it name suggests, the exhibition is intended as a means to sum up Yuan's life before 30, and shows how Yuan and his friends try, not without effort, to maintain a Bohemian lifestyle.
Always clutching a camera, Yuan takes photos of everything from sunrises to toilets. The photos on display were taken in a six-year period and in many countries. In a previous exhibition titled "Calendar" Yuan sewed 365 photos, one taken each day for one year, to a T-shirt he wore at the show. This latest show is similarly a record of his life.
Highlights of the works are several photos of storefront windows taken in the US. Reflections of grey skyscrapers on the glass create eerie effects as they seem to interact with the mannequins dressed in luxury goods.
Although most of the photos depict experiences 20-somethings in Taiwan can easily relate to, the photos as a whole lack thematic focus. "The truth is that the photos are simple about some movements that have happened and been photographed. And I try to present our generation's point of view by doing this," said Yuan.
1.30 I Will Survive will take place from Oct. 1 to Oct. 31 at cafe 2.31, located at 27, Ln. 86, Hsinyi Rd., Sec. 2 (信義路二段86巷27號).
A few weeks ago I found myself at a Family Mart talking with the morning shift worker there, who has become my coffee guy. Both of us were in a funk over the “unseasonable” warm weather, a state of mind known as “solastalgia” — distress produced by environmental change. In fact, the weather was not that out of the ordinary in boiling Central Taiwan, and likely cooler than the temperatures we will experience in the near-future. According to the Taiwan Adaptation Platform, between 1957 and 2006, summer lengthened by 27.8 days, while winter shrunk by 29.7 days. Winter is not
Taiwan’s post-World War II architecture, “practical, cheap and temporary,” not to mention “rather forgettable.” This was a characterization recently given by Taiwan-based historian John Ross on his Formosa Files podcast. Yet the 1960s and 1970s were, in fact, the period of Taiwan’s foundational building boom, which, to a great extent, defined the look of Taiwan’s cities, determining the way denizens live today. During this period, functionalist concrete blocks and Chinese nostalgia gave way to new interpretations of modernism, large planned communities and high-rise skyscrapers. It is currently the subject of a new exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Modern
March 25 to March 31 A 56-year-old Wu Li Yu-ke (吳李玉哥) was straightening out her artist son’s piles of drawings when she inadvertently flipped one over, revealing the blank backside of the paper. Absent-mindedly, she picked up a pencil and recalled how she used to sketch embroidery designs for her clothing business. Without clients and budget or labor constraints to worry about, Wu Li drew freely whatever image came to her mind. With much more free time now that her son had found a job, she found herself missing her home village in China, where she
In recent years, Slovakia has been seen as a highly democratic and Western-oriented Central European country. This image was reinforced by the election of the country’s first female president in 2019, efforts to provide extensive assistance to Ukraine and the strengthening of relations with Taiwan, all of which strengthened Slovakia’s position within the European Union. However, the latest developments in the country suggest that the situation is changing rapidly. As such, the presidential elections to be held on March 23 will be an indicator of whether Slovakia remains in the Western sphere of influence or moves eastward, notably towards Russia and