Visiting UK artist Daniel Saul arrived in Taiwan just over two weeks ago full of ideas about what the country would be like and even what kind of art he might produce as a result of his visit.
"I came with all these stereotype ideas, but quickly put all those aside," he said. "Superficially, I thought, Taipei looked a bit like New York and I felt at home, but then there is this enormous amount of culture to delve into."
"I went to the holding hands event [the 228 Hand-in-Hand Rally last weekend] and it made quite an impression. I asked one elderly lady [through an interpreter] why 228 was important. She said she was born on February 28, but lost her father during the 228 Incident. That was why she never celebrated her birthday."
PHOTO COURTESY OF ARTIST
Saul is one of three British artists staying at the Taipei Artist Village as part of a British Council Taipei and National Endowment for Culture and the Arts initiative, which is intended to "build lasting relationships between the UK and Taiwan by connecting people with learning opportunities and creative ideas," according to its organizers.
Saul, a digital artist, is joined by Jeroen Speak (music) and Andrea Constantinou (dance). In the opposite direction, digital artist Hsu Su-chen (許淑真) has gone to Huddersfield, musician Chen Yong (陳揚) is in Gateshead and dancer Yao Shu-fen (姚淑芬) has taken up a residency in Newcastle Upon Tyne.
The three-month exchange
program is designed to stimulate the artists' creativity and raise awareness of contemporary British and Taiwanese art.
Some of Saul's work is already being showcased. His digital animation Nuclear Train has been installed at Taiwan National University's new gallery space.
It takes as its starting point the three trains that rumble through London in the early morning carrying nuclear waste. "They are trains that you can feel, but can't see. It's a 10-minute long story, with the train as a starting point. But it also involves a family, a father and his disabled daughter. He becomes obsessed with the train and it becomes a symbol of everything that's wrong with his life," Saul said.
In the mainstream view, the Philippines should be worried that a conflict over Taiwan between the superpowers will drag in Manila. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr observed in an interview in The Wall Street Journal last year, “I learned an African saying: When elephants fight, the only one that loses is the grass. We are the grass in this situation. We don’t want to get trampled.” Such sentiments are widespread. Few seem to have imagined the opposite: that a gray zone incursion of People’s Republic of China (PRC) ships into the Philippines’ waters could trigger a conflict that drags in Taiwan. Fewer
March 18 to March 24 Yasushi Noro knew that it was not the right time to scale Hehuan Mountain (合歡). It was March 1913 and the weather was still bitingly cold at high altitudes. But he knew he couldn’t afford to wait, either. Launched in 1910, the Japanese colonial government’s “five year plan to govern the savages” was going well. After numerous bloody battles, they had subdued almost all of the indigenous peoples in northeastern Taiwan, save for the Truku who held strong to their territory around the Liwu River (立霧溪) and Mugua River (木瓜溪) basins in today’s Hualien County (花蓮). The Japanese
Pei-Ru Ko (柯沛如) says her Taipei upbringing was a little different from her peers. “We lived near the National Palace Museum [north of Taipei] and our neighbors had rice paddies. They were growing food right next to us. There was a mountain and a river so people would say, ‘you live in the mountains,’ and my friends wouldn’t want to come and visit.” While her school friends remained a bus ride away, Ko’s semi-rural upbringing schooled her in other things, including where food comes from. “Most people living in Taipei wouldn’t have a neighbor that was growing food,” she says. “So
Whether you’re interested in the history of ceramics, the production process itself, creating your own pottery, shopping for ceramic vessels, or simply admiring beautiful handmade items, the Zhunan Snake Kiln (竹南蛇窯) in Jhunan Township (竹南), Miaoli County, is definitely worth a visit. For centuries, kiln products were an integral part of daily life in Taiwan: bricks for walls, tiles for roofs, pottery for the kitchen, jugs for fermenting alcoholic drinks, as well as decorative elements on temples, all came from kilns, and Miaoli was a major hub for the production of these items. The Zhunan Snake Kiln has a large area dedicated