Art plays its role in urban revitalization

Taking a walk in northwest part of Taipei can be a migration through a cultural revitalization of the neighborhood.

Start off at Shin Leh Yuan Gallery with its current exhibition City of Swallows:

Migration, Post-colonial Memory and New Taiwan Color which continues on Zhongshan North Road and ends up at the SPOT-Taipei Film House. Curator Elsa Chen (陳香君) explores the idea of migration as seen through the eyes of Taiwanese artists, filmmakers and activists and a comic book artist from Hong Kong. The gallery provides headsets with audio tours of the exhibition in Mandarin, Hokklo, Hakka, English, Thai, Indonesian and Vietnamese.

At Shin Leh Yuan Art Gallery, there is filmmaker Mia Chen's (陳明秀) short film showing Taiwanese cosplay participants as they put on makeup and costumes to play the role of their favorite comic book characters, and demonstrates how young Taiwanese have adapted Japanese culture and put their own stamp on it. Julie Chou (周靈芝) exhibits large digital prints of Indian beggers. By enlarging the snapshot-like image, Chou tries to transport the viewer into a real-life situation. Over at the SPOT-Taipei Film House, Channel A's video, shot in western Africa, records a dundunba drumming competition.

At St Christopher's Church, Lin Hsiao-fang's (林筱芳) documentary film consists of interviews with South East Asian brides who settle down in Meinung with their Taiwanese husbands. Wu Ping-hai (吳平海) also documents several hard-working foreign brides and their adaptation to their new lifestyles. Hong Kong-based comic book artist Lily Lau (劉莉莉) has a series of illustrative panels outside the church.

Taking it to the streets, Yin Pao-ning (殷寶寧) placed sofas and bar stools at various spots along Zhongshan North Road.

Additionally, the exhibition has an ongoing series of panel discussions from 2:30pm to 5pm at Room D, Zhongshan District Community Centre, 2F, 21, Lane 59, Sec 2, Zhongshan N Rd. On Sunday, Taiwan is Becoming Home: Documentary Films and the Intervention in the Condition of New Immigrants is the heady topic for a scheduled talk led by artists and academics. For April 9 the topic is Contemporary Taiwan and Imperialist Gaze: Post-colonial Memory and Aesthetic Transformation.

An exhibition of more traditional white-cube fare can be found at IT Park. Painter Juin Shieh (謝鴻均) uses oil on canvas to address contemporary life while using an abstract art vocabulary. Her imagery originates from the human musculature. The works, made using fierce, wide strokes and little stipulations of stripes, are a visceral feast of shape, color and texture.

A couple of doors down is the newly opened artist-run VT Salon. Besides being an elegant lounge bar, it exhibits the latest in contemporary Taiwanese art. A gray cement minimalist feel to the interior sets the sophisticated tone for the works on view. Howard Chen's (陳浚豪) shiny thumbtack mandala wallpiece appropriately fits in along with the pseudo-architectural bas-reliefs of Tu Wei-cheng (涂維政). And since it is a darkened ambient space, video projections work quite well and for Very Video 100, various videos by local artists will be shown. Wu Dar-kuen's (吳達坤) latest video of a topsy-turvey New York lends an other-worldness to the room. This group collaboration shows that art does not only belong to the realm of the daytime well-lit gallery but that it can become a nighttime denizen too.