Various Taiwan- and UK-based cultural agencies gather this evening to toast the pilot year of an artist residence program that has boosted culture exchanges between the two countries and produced some interesting hybrid art.
The British Council Taipei and the Taiwan Council For Cultural Affairs launched the Taiwan-UK Artist Fellowship Programme last year, eager to expand on existing artistic links between the two countries.
Three Taiwan-based artists -- working in either music, dance or digital arts -- were given a three month residency in the UK, while three British artists working in the same art forms were given a residency in Taiwan.
PHOTO COURTESY OF HIMHERANDIT. PRODUCTIONS
As the participating artists wrapped up their residencies this month they describe the creative impact a fresh environment has had on their art.
"It has been a great experience and it has provided the most valuable thing that an artist needs: time and space to create, explore and discover. I have gained confidence in what I am doing as an artist and why I am doing it," UK dancer Andreas Constantinou said.
In addition to video installations exhibited during his stay at Taipei Artist Village, Constantinou was also commissioned by Chun-Shan Girls Junior High School in Tainan to choreograph a dance piece titled, Stranger Things Have Happened.
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ARTIST (HSU SU-CHEN)
"It was a great experience for both myself and the students at this school. For me because of the challenge to communicate with non-English speaking students and teachers, and for them it was the first time they had been involved in a minimalist non-technical dance [movement] work."
Constantinou added that the collaboration also provided the young dancers with an opportunity to combine dance with video, something they had never done before.
In his work with digital arts, Daniel Saul has been equally productive during the last three months. Having completed two short documentary videos, one in which he collaborated with Taiwanese artist Lee Ming-sheng (
Hsu Su-chen (
Yao Shu-fen (
"I was not interested in football at all, but it is a big part of everyone's life there. It was my first impression of Newcastle."
Whether or not the Artist Fellowship Programme will run next year rests in part on Arts Council England, an agency that provides funding for arts in England.
It is a decision based to a large extent on the evaluation of the pilot year by Adam Jeanes, assistant director of visiting arts. In an interview during his stay in Taiwan, Jeanes said, based on his observations during the past week, the program had been a success and he intends to recommend that it go ahead.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist