Rine Boyer, who hails from hipster-rich Bridgeport, Chicago, offers her take on hipsters at a solo exhibition in Taipei. On view at Bluerider Art’s Hipster Culture (文青文化) are funky acrylic portraits of young people that Boyer met at dive bars, indie concerts and other retreats for Chicago’s alternative crowd. From afar, you see only the hipster in hipster gear. Up close, you notice tiny icons on the portrait — such as the pink octopi on Todd — that may be badges of other cultural identities. Through works that reward a shift in perception with new information, Boyer encourages viewers to test new ways of seeing the hipster phenomenon.
■ Bluerider Art, 9F, 25-1, Renai Rd Sec 4, Taipei (北市仁愛路四段25-1號9樓), tel: (02) 2752-2238, open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9am to 6pm
■ Opening reception tomorrow at 3pm. Until Feb. 9
Photo Courtesy of the Taipei4A
At Stop Right Beside God (停在神旁邊), Pingtung native Huang Yen-Ying (黃彥穎) is showing video, photo, paintings and installations that depict slices of Taiwan’s religious and spiritual landscape. His latest video project, The Flow of Energy (穴道圖), is inspired by his trips to a traditional Chinese medicine clinic, where he encountered blind masseurs who read pressure points like a horoscope. Huang’s Amen (阿們) is a series about the ubiquitous donation boxes that passersby fill up with receipts and cash — even though they can’t confirm the final destination.
■ VT Artsalon (非常廟藝文空間), B1, 17, Ln 56, Xinsheng N Rd Sec 3, Taipei (台北市新生北路三段56巷17號B1), tel: (02) 2597-2525. Open Tuesdays through Fridays from 11:30pm to 7pm and Saturdays from 1:30 to 9pm
Photo Courtesy of Bluerider Art
■ Opens tomorrow. Until Jan. 18
The Children’s Rights Poster Exhibition (童理心—兒童人權海報特展) features 29 winners and runner-ups in the student division of the 4A Creative Awards (4A創意獎), a national ad design contest. This year, graduate and undergraduate students were asked to create public service ads promoting one of the interior ministry’s Rights of the Child (兒童權利公約), for instance the right to personal safety and freedom from economic exploitation. The top prize went to Shen Feng-chuan (沈楓荃) of Ming Chuan University for Listen to Mom and Dad: a pair of cartoon ads that show parents leading children to suicide.
■ National Taiwan Museum (臺灣博物館), 2 Xiangyang Rd, Taipei (臺北市襄陽路2號), tel: (02) 2382-2566, open Tuesdays through Sundays from 9:30am to 5 pm
■ Until Jan. 14
The Taipei Arts Awards (台北美術獎) is a juried competition for rising visual artists in Taiwan. Chosen from 245 entrants, this year’s 12 finalists include Yuda Ho (何昱達), whose virtual saleswomen in 24 Hrs Betelnut Shop invite interaction, and Chen Ting-chun (陳亭君) of Their Rooms, Their Dreams: playful oil paintings of furnishings that tell tales about their owners. Works by finalists go on display tomorrow.
■ Taipei Fine Arts Museum (台北市立美術館), 181, Zhongshan N Rd Sec 3, Taipei (台北市中山北路三段181號), tel: (02) 2595-7656. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9:30am to 5:30pm and until 8:30pm on Saturdays
■ Opens tomorrow. Until March 16
Pure Taiwan (玉質台灣) is a group show of jade art at the Hualien County Stone Sculptural Museum, Taiwan’s only museum dedicated to stone sculptures. Hualien is home to diverse stone deposits, including prized jades like blue jade and the crystal-like chalcedony. The show features a “dining room” and a “study” that are adorned with a black-jade chandelier and other ornate jade pieces curated by Chen Jun-liang (陳俊良) in partnership with local artisans. A third room, titled “Decorated Treasures,” presents metalwork devised around jade.
■ Hualien County Stone Sculptural Museum (花蓮石雕博物館), 6 Wenfu Rd, Hualien City (花蓮市文復路6號), tel: (03) 822-7121 ext. 245, open daily from 9am to 5pm, admission: NT$20
■ Until Feb. 16
May 18 to May 24 Pastor Yang Hsu’s (楊煦) congregation was shocked upon seeing the land he chose to build his orphanage. It was surrounded by mountains on three sides, and the only way to access it was to cross a river by foot. The soil was poor due to runoff, and large rocks strewn across the plot prevented much from growing. In addition, there was no running water or electricity. But it was all Yang could afford. He and his Indigenous Atayal wife Lin Feng-ying (林鳳英) had already been caring for 24 orphans in their home, and they were in
President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday delivered an address marking the first anniversary of his presidency. In the speech, Lai affirmed Taiwan’s global role in technology, trade and security. He announced economic and national security initiatives, and emphasized democratic values and cross-party cooperation. The following is the full text of his speech: Yesterday, outside of Beida Elementary School in New Taipei City’s Sanxia District (三峽), there was a major traffic accident that, sadly, claimed several lives and resulted in multiple injuries. The Executive Yuan immediately formed a task force, and last night I personally visited the victims in hospital. Central government agencies and the
Australia’s ABC last week published a piece on the recall campaign. The article emphasized the divisions in Taiwanese society and blamed the recall for worsening them. It quotes a supporter of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) as saying “I’m 43 years old, born and raised here, and I’ve never seen the country this divided in my entire life.” Apparently, as an adult, she slept through the post-election violence in 2000 and 2004 by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), the veiled coup threats by the military when Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) became president, the 2006 Red Shirt protests against him ginned up by
As with most of northern Thailand’s Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) settlements, the village of Arunothai was only given a Thai name once the Thai government began in the 1970s to assert control over the border region and initiate a decades-long process of political integration. The village’s original name, bestowed by its Yunnanese founders when they first settled the valley in the late 1960s, was a Chinese name, Dagudi (大谷地), which literally translates as “a place for threshing rice.” At that time, these village founders did not know how permanent their settlement would be. Most of Arunothai’s first generation were soldiers
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