London-based Britta Jaschinski, the 2010 European Wildlife Photographer of the Year, is showing work in Taipei at solo a exhibition titled Artificial Paradise (人造動物樂園). Jaschinski brings eight charcoal-colored prints, most featuring captive animals. Working alongside animal welfare groups and charity organizations, she documented zoo animals on black-and-white film, in low-light conditions and with minimal digital post-production. The results are incredible ghost-like images that record the physical movements and the unsettled psychological states of the animals in the cage.
■ Bluerider Art (藍騎士藝術空間) 9F, 25-1, Renai Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (北市仁愛路四段25-1號9樓), tel: (02) 2752-2238. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9am to 6pm
■ Until Oct. 4
Photo courtesy of NTMOFA
Inheritance and Refinement (傳承.淬鍊) is a solo exhibition featuring work by gouache painter Chao Shih-chuan (趙世傳). Born to a blue-collar family in the steel industry, Chao discovered painting late in life but quickly became an obsessive student of the art. His earliest works are traditional still-life paintings, but soon Chao was winning awards with his treatment of classic objects and local sights in an edgy, slightly cubist and color-splashed signature style.
■ National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (NTMOFA, 國立臺灣美術館), 2, Wuquan W Rd Sec 1, Greater Taichung (台中市五權西路一段2號) tel: (04) 2372-3552. Open Tuesdays to Fridays from 9am to 5pm, Saturdays and Sundays from 9am to 6pm
■ Until Sunday
Photo courtesy of Fotoaura
Personal Memorandum (私人備忘) is a retrospective on the life and work of Greater Kaohsiung native Lin Bo-liang (林柏樑). Lin is a self-taught professional photographer who focuses on daily life in Taiwan, including breathtaking topography, overlooked people and darker parts of the cultural landscape. This exhibition includes a series of discussions starting tomorrow at the opening reception and concluding with an artist’s talk on Sept. 20 at 3pm. For a full list of events, visit www.fotoaura.com.tw (Chinese only).
■ Fotoaura Institute of Photography (海馬迴光畫館), 2F, 83 Chenggong Rd, Greater Tainan (台南市成功路83號2樓), tel: (06) 222-3495. Open Wednesdays to Sundays from 1pm to 8pm; closed Mondays and Tuesdays
■ Opening reception tomorrow at 2pm. Until Sept. 21
A new exhibition marks 90 years of the Congee Association (粥會), Taiwan’s oldest literary club. Founded in 1924 in Shanghai, the club now has headquarters in Taipei and branches around the world. The Congee Association’s 90th Anniversary: Exhibition of Painting & Calligraphy (粥會九十年: 粥賢書畫展) brings together past members’ paintings, calligraphy, seal engravings, letters and other works to survey the club’s fluctuating fortunes and provide context for the phenomenon of the literary gathering.
■ 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: NT$30
■ Opens today. Until Oct. 12
National Museum of Prehistory (臺灣史前文化博物館) presents the history and art of baby carriers in Asia at Cultures of Baby Carriers: Fertility, Blessings and Protection (繁衍、祈福和保護:背兒帶文化). On view are baby carriers used among southwest Chinese minorities, the people of Bali, Siberia, Borneo and other cultures in Asia, who fashion the carriers to meet aesthetic concepts and needs that change over time.
■ National Museum of Prehistory, 1 Museum Rd, Taitung City (台東市博物館路1號), tel: (08) 938-1166. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9am to 5pm
■ Until March 1
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and
Over the course of former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 11-day trip to China that included a meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) a surprising number of people commented that the former president was now “irrelevant.” Upon reflection, it became apparent that these comments were coming from pro-Taiwan, pan-green supporters and they were expressing what they hoped was the case, rather than the reality. Ma’s ideology is so pro-China (read: deep blue) and controversial that many in his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hope he retires quickly, or at least refrains from speaking on some subjects. Regardless
Approaching her mid-30s, Xiong Yidan reckons that most of her friends are on to their second or even third babies. But Xiong has more than a dozen. There is Lucky, the street dog from Bangkok who jumped into a taxi with her and never left. There is Sophie and Ben, sibling geese, who honk from morning to night. Boop and Pan, both goats, are romantically involved. Dumpling the hedgehog enjoys a belly rub from time to time. The list goes on. Xiong nurtures her brood from her 8,000 square meter farm in Chiang Dao, a mountainous district in northern Thailand’s