On the surface, it seems like these projects are empowering and ultimately beneficial to the community they serve. These kinds of projects where artists take on the role of leaders/teachers within communities of non-artists emphasize a feel-good aesthetic that seems to offer a voice to the voiceless common people. But, more often, participants have been given strict guidelines to which they conform and usually tend to adhere. Rarely does a participant think outside of the box. So the voice of the community may actually be more the artist who, in his/her paternalistic role, acts more as puppet master than spirit medium.
Countless artists from all around the world have collected people's wishes and dreams, to the point that this is becoming a cliche and fairly uninspiring idea. Yet, one TOTM project last November seemed to subvert this principle in a very subtle way.
Architect Marco Casagrande and sculptor Martin Ross created Trojan Rocking Horses, in which citizens wrote down their dreams and wishes and placed them into welded metal horses that were then paraded around the city.
The project culminated in a performance where Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
Exhibition notes:
What: Taipei on the Move (
Where: Eslite Vision Gallery, B2, 245, Dunhua S Rd, Sec 1, Taipei (
When: Daily, 11am 10pm, through Jan. 23
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