The Red Room group has collected a very varied assortment of painters, musicians and other artists from around Taiwan for a day-long event today at Taipei’s Huashan 1914 Creative Park called Artists Beat the Flood 2.
Artists Beat the Flood 2 was launched to help in the building and creation of a shared artistic/creative community in Taiwan. And like the first event, held on Sept. 5, 2009, artists will be painting on site during the day and there will be a silent auction of their works as well as some others that have been donated.
The money raised from the entrance fees and art sale will be used toward event expenses and future events organized by the Red Room, artists, musicians and collaborating parties, participating artist Rohma Mehta told the Taipei Times in an e-mail.
Photo Courtesy of Roma Mehta
Among those who are donating their time and/or works are Taipei-based illustrator Ann Chang, freelance animation director and illustrator JJ Chen, Daniel Desjardins; Charles Haines, poet/painter/jewelry maker Kate Huang (黃莞淑), Constance Woods and self-described “street artist” Joe Fang (方建翔).
The expatriate artists, most of whom are professionals, hail from several countries, including the UK, Croatia, India and Canada.
The event offers visitors a chance to interact with the graphic artists and painters during the creative process and watch how individual works develop.
Photo Courtesy of Aleksandra Tolnauer
However, while the artists will be getting to work early on, starting at 10am, the musical portion of the day does not start until 1pm.
As of press time, the line-up was Almost Irish at 1pm, Josh Drye at 2pm, Future Lands String Quartet at 3pm and the quartet Strawberry Jam Sandwich at 4:30pm. There will be two “unplugged” performances, first by pop rockers Dress Shop at 5:45pm and then Calico (花貓畫國畫) at 7:15pm.
Although the publicity information says the event runs from 10am to 7pm, Calico is not taking the stage until after 7pm, so figure on the show going on at least until 8pm.
COMMUNITY OF ART LOVERS
The Red Room began as Stage Time and Wine@Red Room in November 2009, pulled together by three members of the Mehta family, who were long-term Taipei-based expatriates, architect Leiven Hwang (黃立文), entrepreneur and activist Ping Chu (朱平) and several others, who wanted to create a space where people could share their love of the spoken word, creativity and artistry — as well as some wine and snacks.
While the initial monthly get-togethers focused on sharing poetry and short-story recitations — and some musical contributions — mostly in English, the sessions have evolved and grown more cross-cultural, multi-dimensional and multi-generational, drawing people not just from Taipei, but from around the nation.
Held on the third Saturday of every month, the Red Room is a well-established gathering that regularly packs the second-floor workshop space to capacity. The sign-up book by the door for those who want to share fills up rapidly. It is hard to predict what will be on tap: poetry, a personal memoir, rapping, an interpretive dance, a song on the guzheng (古箏) or liuqin (柳琴).
The creativity unleashed by the Red Room and the camaraderie and networking that are natural by-products have led to some spin-off ventures, including Red Room Radio Redux, which focuses on reader’s theater and radio drama and has done four hour-long drama productions in cooperation with International Community Radio Taipei, and Aside@the Red Room, a curated show. There have also been fundraisers to raise money for Playing for Change, a charity that builds music schools in impoverished areas of Africa and Nepal.
From the last quarter of 2001, research shows that real housing prices nearly tripled (before a 2012 law to enforce housing price registration, researchers tracked a few large real estate firms to estimate housing price behavior). Incomes have not kept pace, though this has not yet led to defaults. Instead, an increasing chunk of household income goes to mortgage payments. This suggests that even if incomes grow, the mortgage squeeze will still make voters feel like their paychecks won’t stretch to cover expenses. The housing price rises in the last two decades are now driving higher rents. The rental market
July 21 to July 27 If the “Taiwan Independence Association” (TIA) incident had happened four years earlier, it probably wouldn’t have caused much of an uproar. But the arrest of four young suspected independence activists in the early hours of May 9, 1991, sparked outrage, with many denouncing it as a return to the White Terror — a time when anyone could be detained for suspected seditious activity. Not only had martial law been lifted in 1987, just days earlier on May 1, the government had abolished the Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of National Mobilization for Suppression of the Communist
Fifty-five years ago, a .25-caliber Beretta fired in the revolving door of New York’s Plaza Hotel set Taiwan on an unexpected path to democracy. As Chinese military incursions intensify today, a new documentary, When the Spring Rain Falls (春雨424), revisits that 1970 assassination attempt on then-vice premier Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國). Director Sylvia Feng (馮賢賢) raises the question Taiwan faces under existential threat: “How do we safeguard our fragile democracy and precious freedom?” ASSASSINATION After its retreat to Taiwan in 1949, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime under Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) imposed a ruthless military rule, crushing democratic aspirations and kidnapping dissidents from
Fundamentally, this Saturday’s recall vote on 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers is a democratic battle of wills between hardcore supporters of Taiwan sovereignty and the KMT incumbents’ core supporters. The recall campaigners have a key asset: clarity of purpose. Stripped to the core, their mission is to defend Taiwan’s sovereignty and democracy from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). They understand a basic truth, the CCP is — in their own words — at war with Taiwan and Western democracies. Their “unrestricted warfare” campaign to undermine and destroy Taiwan from within is explicit, while simultaneously conducting rehearsals almost daily for invasion,