At Vertigo: Chaos and Dislocation in Contemporary Australian Art (迷魂場域), 10 Australian artists bring works about the stranger conditions of contemporary life. Using motion sensors, Kristin McIver builds an installation that greets passersby with urgent demands to “share” and “engage” online — a parody that attracts notice to a routine event. Cate Consandine’s Lash is a video without a narrative about the fetish of cosmetics and masks, featuring a man with feathers attached to his face. Curated by Claire Anna Watson, Vertigo is a touring exhibition organized by Asialink Arts in Australia. It is named after the Hitchcock film Vertigo, notable for using the in-camera dolly zoom effect to convey the protagonist’s fear of heights.
■ Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei (MOCA, Taipei), 39 Changan W Rd, Taipei City (台北市長安西路39號), tel: (02) 2552-3720. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6pm. Admission: Free
■ Opens tomorrow. Until June 8
Photo Courtesy of MOCA
Chen Shun-chu (陳順築) presents his memoirs in two ways at solo exhibition One Piece Room. Born in 1963 in Penghu County, Chen left as a teen to live in Taipei and pursued what became a successful career as a fine art photographer. Fengkuei Chair (風櫃椅), a two-part installation, is his careful configuration of a wooden cabinet, a rotating ceiling fan, a chair, a glass of water and other household items. Each is a symbol — the cabinet is home, the chair is himself and the objects are memories — and their arrangement depicts an inner emotional tension that comes with a nomadic career. At the exhibition Chen is also showing On the Road (迢迢路), 11 black-and-white images that prominently feature puddles on the road and desolate, unpeopled street scenes in Penghu, Taiwan and a handful of foreign countries. These road landscapes are left unprocessed and uncut, so that they are an unedited scrapbook of time spent between destinations.
■ Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts (關渡美術館), 1 Xueyuan Rd, Taipei City (台北市學園路1號), tel: (02) 2896-1000 ext 2432. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 5pm
■ Opens today. Until July 6
Photo Courtesy of TFAM
The Youth Innovative Design Festival (青春設計節) at the Pier-2 Art Center in Greater Kaohsiung is an annual stage for Taiwanese students of audiovisual media, digital technology, visual design, games and installation art. This year, the program includes a film festival and forums by design professors and working designers. For more information, visit www.ydf.org.tw
■ Pier-2 Art Center (駁二藝術特區), 1 Dayong Rd, Greater Kaohsiung (高雄市大勇路1號), tel: (07) 228-8936. Open Tuesday to Sundays from 10am to 8pm, admission: NT$99
■ Until Sunday
Pioneer of Taiwan Ceramics (臺灣窯業達人) features Lin Ken-Cheng (林根成) — “Teacher Ah-cheng” (阿成師) — an octogenarian who was the face of Taiwanese ceramics at the 1962 World’s Fair in Seattle. His solo exhibition is a roundup of iconic works including his sophisticated statues of Buddha and other gods, which were exported to about 40 countries throughout his career. Born in Tonghsiao (通霄), Miaoli in 1932, Lin is founder of Yingge’s Chuohong Studio (佐弘工藝社工作室) and the Taiwan Folk Art Ceramics Company.
■ Yingge Ceramics Museum (鶯歌陶瓷博物館), 200 Wenhua Rd, New Taipei City (新北市文化路200號), tel: (02) 8677-2727. Open Mondays to Fridays from 9:30am to 5pm, Saturdays and Sundays from 9:30am to 6pm, closed first Monday of the month. Admission: Free
■ Until June 8
Playground for Kids: Indigenous Contemporary Art of Taiwan (童年遊戲場: 臺灣原住民當代藝術展) is an interactive art show for children at the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts (高雄市立美術館). Eight artists from six Aboriginal tribes were invited to create pieces that teach children the Austronesian games and customs of their own childhoods. There’s a theater that screens animated films, as well as interactive pieces such as a kid-friendly loom for Atayal weaving and a “forest” populated with animal sculptures, where children can learn creative uses for the leaf of a pandanus tree.
■ Children’s Museum of Art Gallery at the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, 80 Meishuguan Rd, Greater Kaohsiung (高雄市美術館路80號), tel: (07) 555-0331. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9am to 5pm. Admission: Free
■ Until May 25
My friends and I have been enjoying the last two weeks of revelation after revelation of the financial and legal shenanigans of Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head and recent presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲). Every day brings fresh news — allegations that a building had purchased with party subsidies but listed in Ko’s name, allegations of downloading party subsidy funds into his personal accounts. Ko’s call last December for the regulations for the government’s special budgets to be amended to enforce fiscal discipline, and his September unveiling of his party’s anti-corruption plan, have now taken on a certain delightful irony.
The number of scandals and setbacks hitting the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) in such quick and daily succession in the last few weeks is unprecedented, at least in the countries whose politics I am familiar with. The local media is covering this train wreck on an almost hourly basis, which in the latest news saw party chair Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) detained by prosecutors on Friday and released without bail yesterday. The number of links collected to produce these detailed columns may reach 400 by the time this hits the streets. To get up to speed, two columns have been written: “Donovan’s
President William Lai’s (賴清德) vision for Taiwan to become an “AI island” has three conditions: constructing advanced data centers, ensuring a stable and green energy supply, and cultivating AI talent. However, the energy issue supply is the greatest challenge. To clarify, let’s reframe the problem in terms of the Olympics. Given Taiwan’s OEM (original equipment manufacturer) roles in the technology sector, Taiwan is not an athlete in the AI Olympics, or even a trainer, but rather a training ground for global AI athletes (AI companies). In other words, Taiwan’s semiconductor ecosystem provides world-class training facilities and equipment that have already attracted
Despite her well-paying tech job, Li Daijing didn’t hesitate when her cousin asked for help running a restaurant in Mexico City. She packed up and left China for the Mexican capital last year, with dreams of a new adventure. The 30-year-old woman from Chengdu, the Sichuan provincial capital, hopes one day to start an online business importing furniture from her home country. “I want more,” Li said. “I want to be a strong woman. I want independence.” Li is among a new wave of Chinese migrants who are leaving their country in search of opportunities, more freedom or better financial prospects at a
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