Sacred Sojourn (藏地轉行) is an exhibition of three high-resolution videos that Jawshing Arthur Liou (劉肇興) created after his daughter’s death. In mourning, Liou embarked on a 2,300km expedition from Lhasa to the Tibetan Plateau and on to Mount Everest and Mount Kailash. The works that have come out of this trip are unique mountain landscapes, presented with a respect for nature as a space of spiritual sanctuary. Zumulanma is a time-lapse sequence of deep-blue skies and distant snowcaps of Mount Everest, which are beautiful to behold yet oxygen-poor and merciless to most living creatures. Saga Dawa is a hypnotic soft-focus view of tourists and pilgrims partaking in a Tibetan Buddhist festival, surrounded by uniformed police who consider large gatherings tinder for rebellion. Kora, named after a type of Tibetan meditation that is done while walking, documents his own four-day walk around Mount Kailash in a bid to find peace. Born in 1968, Liou is currently a professor of digital art at Indiana University in Bloomington.
■ Taipei Fine Arts Museum (臺北市立美術館), 181, Zhongshan N Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (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. Admission: NT$30
■ Opens tomorrow. Until July 20
Photo Courtesy of Adi Panuntun
We Art Together (當偶們同在藝起) brings together ceramics, paper puppets, wood engravings, stop-motion animation and other artworks by 636 students. Each year, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei sends artists to Cheng Yuan Senior High School (成淵高中), Jan Cheng Junior High School (建成國中) and Rixin Elementary School (日新國小) to teach six to eight-week courses in specialized media, from which this exhibition is a result.
■ MOCA Studio Underground (地下實驗), Zhongshan Metro Mall, near Exit R9 (捷運中山地下街，近R9出口), tel: (02) 2552-3721. Free admission
■ Until June 29
Photo Courtesy of TFAM
Metal Creation (鍊金術) is a group exhibition that chronicles the development of blacksmithing over the past 20 years in Taiwan. It offers live demonstrations and features 146 objects: daily items and tools, accessories and art pieces by top blacksmiths and apprentices in the trade.
■ National Taiwan Craft Research and Development Institute, 573 Zhongzheng Rd, Caotun Township, Nantou County (南投縣草屯鎮中正路573號), tel: (49) 233-4141. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9am to 5pm
■ Until Oct. 12
The Art of Chu Teh-chun (朱德群藝術展) is a retrospective exhibition honoring a leading abstract painter who passed away this March in Paris. Chu Teh-chun was born in 1920 in Suzhou, China, and fled to Taiwan during the Chinese Civil War. In 1955, he moved to Paris and began to depart from his earlier figurative works, experimenting with abstract pieces that combined Chinese calligraphy with light washes of oil paint. In 1997, Chu was elected to the Academie des Beaux-Arts in Paris as the first Asian-born member in its history. Tina Keng Gallery (耿畫廊) brings together 40 of Chu’s representative pieces dating from the 1950s to the 21st century.
■ Tina Keng Gallery (耿畫廊), 15, Ln 548, Ruiguang Rd, Taipei City (台北市瑞光路548巷15號), tel: (02) 2659-0798. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 7pm
■ Until June 1
At Wonder of Fantasy: 2014 International Techno Art Exhibition (奇幻視界：2014國際科技藝術展), artists from around the globe use cutting-edge projection techniques and image formats to create 16 digital spectacles. This year’s program features workshops, forums and lectures by the world’s leading thinkers in new media theory, including Eleanor Gates-Stuart from Australia and Machiko Kusahara from Japan’s Waseda University. For more information, visit fantasy.ntmofa.gov.tw
■ National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (國立臺灣美術館), 2, Wuquan W Rd Sec 1, Greater Taichung (台中市西區五權西路一段2號) tel: (04) 2372-3552, open Tuesdays to Fridays from 9am to 5pm, Saturdays and Sundays from 9am to 6pm
■ Until August 31
Jan 13 to Jan 19 Yang Jen-huang (楊仁煌) recalls being slapped by his father when he asked about their Sakizaya heritage, telling him to never mention it otherwise they’ll be killed. “Only then did I start learning about the Karewan Incident,” he tells Mayaw Kilang in “The social culture and ethnic identification of the Sakizaya” (撒奇萊雅族的社會文化與民族認定). “Many of our elders are reluctant to call themselves Sakizaya, and are accustomed to living in Amis (Pangcah) society. Therefore, it’s up to the younger generation to push for official recognition, because there’s still a taboo with the older people.” Although the Sakizaya became Taiwan’s 13th
Earlier this month, a Hong Kong ship, Shunxin-39, was identified as the ship that had cut telecom cables on the seabed north of Keelung. The ship, owned out of Hong Kong and variously described as registered in Cameroon (as Shunxin-39) and Tanzania (as Xinshun-39), was originally People’s Republic of China (PRC)-flagged, but changed registries in 2024, according to Maritime Executive magazine. The Financial Times published tracking data for the ship showing it crossing a number of undersea cables off northern Taiwan over the course of several days. The intent was clear. Shunxin-39, which according to the Taiwan Coast Guard was crewed
China’s military launched a record number of warplane incursions around Taiwan last year as it builds its ability to launch full-scale invasion, something a former chief of Taiwan’s armed forces said Beijing could be capable of within a decade. Analysts said China’s relentless harassment had taken a toll on Taiwan’s resources, but had failed to convince them to capitulate, largely because the threat of invasion was still an empty one, for now. Xi Jinping’s (習近平) determination to annex Taiwan under what the president terms “reunification” is no secret. He has publicly and stridently promised to bring it under Communist party (CCP) control,
On Sept. 27 last year, three climate activists were arrested for throwing soup over Sunflowers by Vincent van Gogh at London’s National Gallery. The Just Stop Oil protest landed on international front pages. But will the action help further the activists’ cause to end fossil fuels? Scientists are beginning to find answers to this question. The number of protests more than tripled between 2006 and 2020 and researchers are working out which tactics are most likely to change public opinion, influence voting behavior, change policy or even overthrow political regimes. “We are experiencing the largest wave of protests in documented history,” says
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