Find Green Light (遇見綠光) is an exhibit of new media art that examines environmental themes related to cities, such as green spaces and urban planning. The seven works by five artists include interactive displays, LED installations, animation and video.
■ The Splendor Hotel Taichung (台中金典酒店), 2F, 1049 Jianxing Rd, Greater Taichung City (台中市健行路1049號2F), tel: (04) 2328-1000 X8815. Open daily from 11am to 10pm
■ Until April 1
Photo Courtesy of The Splendor Hotel Taichung
2011 Taipei Arts Awards shortlisted artist Liao Chi-yu (廖祈羽) uses role-play and open-ended narrative to create videos that subtly examine the complicated feelings relating to bodily experiences, memory and love. Miss Farewell presents these ideas in a solo show in two parts. Twinkle Series depicts the “imagination and experience about cultures and foods” through kitchen settings with “particular food elements and characters,” according to the gallery’s press release. The second series, untitled, portrays the “unexpected sadness and the sense of loss” people usually experience sometime during their life.
■ VT Art Salon (非常廟藝文空間), B1, 47 Yitong St, Taipei City (台北市伊通街47號B1), tel: (02) 2516-1060. Open Tuesdays through Thursdays from 1:30pm to 9pm, and Fridays and Saturdays from 1:30pm to 10pm
■ Until March 10
Photo Courtesy of MOT Arts
Hsia Ai-hua (夏愛華) explores her dreams and the archetypes embedded in the collective unconscious to create a new series of vibrant and surreal sculptures and drawings in In Between the Dormant & Subliminal (夢與闇的游離間).
■ MOT Arts, 3F, 22, Fuxing S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市復興南路一段22號3樓), tel: (02) 2751-8088. Open daily from 11:30am to 8pm
■ Until March 18
First Shot (新影) brings together the photography of 14 emerging artists working in documentary and travel photography. Though no overt theme links the individual artists, the exhibition does offer viewers a glimpse at the subject matter preoccupying the younger generation of Taiwanese photographers.
■ Taiwan International Visual Arts Center (TIVAC — 台灣國際視覺藝術中心), 29, Ln 45, Liaoning St, Taipei City (台北市遼寧街45巷29號), tel: (02) 2773-3347. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11:30am to 7pm
■ Until March 4
Lin Guan-ming (林冠名) delves into his family’s history with Star, a new series of single and double channel videos. Based on photographs of his family taken 30 years ago, the exhibition is a highly personal statement about growing up and what it means to be a parent in a society that has changed rapidly over the same period of time.
■ IT Park Gallery (伊通公園), 41 Yitong St, Taipei City (台北市伊通街41號), tel: (02) 2507-7243. Open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 1pm to 10pm
■ Until March 10
The Mystic Tenmoku (秘色天目) presents several ceramic bowls by master ceramist Kuo Ming-ching (郭明慶). The exhibit takes its name from tenmoku, a glaze and firing technique that creates stunning spotted patterns in gold, silver, purple, orange, red, blue and green. Though functional, in Kuo’s capable hands the bowls are transformed into objects of considerable beauty.
■ Yingge Ceramics Museum (鶯歌陶瓷博物館), 200 Wenhua Rd, Yingge Dist, New Taipei City (新北市鶯歌區文化路200號), tel: (02) 8677-2727. Open daily from 9:30am to 5pm. Closes at 6pm on Saturdays and Sunday. Admission: Free
■ Until March 18
Space and Glaze (空間‧釉彩) is an exhibit of ceramic sculpture by Lin Chen-long (林振龍). Lin’s use of simple geometric lines and solid coloring suggests the influence of geometric abstraction.
■ National Museum of History (國立歷史博物館), 49 Nanhai Rd, Taipei City (台北市南海路49號), tel: (02) 2361-0270. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6pm. General admission is NT$30
■ Until March 4
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