Lu Mu-jen (呂沐芢) and Chiao Sheng-wei (焦聖偉) are childhood best friends and artists who are out of this world. Their collection of artwork depicting various alien, plant and animal life forms intertwined inside UFO-shaped single-celled organisms is currently on display at Frees Art Space (福利社) in Taipei’s Zhongshan District (中山).
When asked if they believe in aliens, both artists responded in the positive with blank looks on their faces which read, why is this question even being asked? Lu has never seen an alien in real life, but Chiao says he’s seen something that looked like a UFO when he was at graduate school in Greater Tainan. Despite their different experiences though, both artists steadfastly believe that life on other planets exist and use this as inspiration for their newest collection, the Euglena Program of Art.
COMMUNICATION IS KEY
Photo Courtesy of Association of the Visual Arts in Taiwan
The artists were putting the finishing touches on their latest addition to the collection, dabbing paint on their canvas in near-perfect sync as photographers snapped away and reporters scribbled in their notepads. Lu and Chiao never discuss what to paint beforehand. Their style is impromptu and organic — they simply pick up their brushes and see where the painting takes them.
“It’s like we are having a conversation with each other but with brush strokes, not words, and it’s exciting not knowing what the next brush stroke or what the end result will be” Lu said.
Communication is one of the key messages in their artwork. Within the earth itself there are numerous modes of communication, many of which are not discernible to the human eye or ear.
Photo Courtesy of Association of the Visual Arts in Taiwan
“Take dolphins for instance,” Lu said, referring to the dolphins in many of their paintings. “They are highly intelligent creatures who communicate through their sonar abilities.”
Lu and Chiao’s logic is that just because humans cannot see, hear, touch, taste or feel something does not mean that it does not exist. Naturally, this logic extends to aliens and life on other planets — perhaps other-worldly creatures use other means of communication, and they have been trying to reach out to us, but we simply cannot detect their message.
The Euglena Program of Art is essentially Lu and Chiao projecting this logic onto canvas. As Chiao says, “no one can yet prove the existence of aliens, so we feel like we have to express it through art instead.”
Photo: Dana Ter, Taipei Times
OTHER-WORLDLY BUT DOWN-TO-EARTH
From afar, the Euglena Project of Art resembles colorful UFO heads. Up close, it’s more of a mish-mash of animals, organisms and elements thrown together — dolphins that swim upstream, cats that smoke cigars and aliens that sprout eagle-like wings. And yet — maybe it’s the random smiley faces interspersed throughout almost every painting — it just seems like everything is coexisting in perfect harmony, or at least, the different elements are trying to understand each other.
“We draw such animals and aliens altogether because they are all very smart creatures,” Lu said.
Photo: Dana Ter, Taipei Times
He adds that he and Chiao both grew up loving the abundance of nature in Taiwan and watching all sorts of television shows and movies. As a result, their art has been influenced by four main tenets: aliens, nature, environmental issues and human beings like Bruce Lee (李小龍) or Michael Jackson who have changed the world in a positive way.
“Such a combination is not possible in real life, but in art, it’s possible,” Chiao says, “therefore, our paintings represent a type of hope.”
Just as there is no definitive answer to the question “do aliens exist?”, there is no definitive meaning behind Lu and Chiao’s paintings. Lu says that the paintings show how “aliens are trying to teach us peaceful messages like mutual understanding and how to preserve the environment.”
Chiao says that to him, the most important message is “a feeling of harmony.”
Likewise, each individual will have his or her own interpretation, although Lu and Chiao say that they hope their artwork will evoke happy feelings in their viewers since they were largely inspired by elements and experiences which made them happy.
So, while Lu and Chiao may seem out of this world, their desire for peaceful coexistence amongst the various elements of worldly and other-worldly life forms is rather endearing and down-to-earth.
This month the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) announced a new policy ostensibly aimed at influencing the upcoming presidential election. A top-notch Voice of America (VOA) report observed “China launched a series of influence campaigns against Taiwan last week, unveiling a plan to promote integrated development across the Taiwan Strait.” The plan, a “demonstration zone,” offers incentives for Taiwanese to live, work and invest in Fujian Province, across the Strait from Taiwan, along with supplies of water, electricity and gas. Using cooperative zones to poach technology and influence Taiwanese is an old plan that has appeared in various
While participating in outrigger canoe activities in Hawaii, Yvonne Jiann (江伊茉) often heard indigenous locals say that their ancestors came from Taiwan. “I didn’t really understand why,” the long-time US resident tells the Taipei Times. Growing up in Taipei, she knew little about indigenous culture. “Only when I returned to Taiwan did I learn about our shared Austronesian cultural background and saw the similarities.” Jiann visited Taiwan just before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down international travel. Unable to leave and missing her canoe family across the Pacific Ocean, she started the Taiwan Outrigger Canoe Club (TOCC) and began researching how
SEPT. 25 to OCT. 1 Joyce McMillan was greatly moved by the pleas of the Taiwanese pastor and doctor who preached at her church in the summer of 1954. Hsieh Wei (謝緯) had just completed his medical residency in Buffalo, New York and stopped by Berkeley to raise funds and recruit staff for the tuberculosis treatment center the Presbyterian Church planned to open in his hometown of Puli, Nantou County. McMillan, who was a nursing aide, had the dream of being an overseas missionary since she was 7 years old. She also had a close friend die of tuberculosis. She expressed
Small things can mean a lot, and all revolutions start somewhere. So it is that the humble pocket, a repository for small things and once a minor consideration in clothes design, has become big news. A growing movement decrying the lack of proper pockets in women’s clothing has begun to find disciples in the world of high fashion, as well as among mainstream chains. A new study of the feminist question of pockets, published on Sept. 14, has already made a sizeable impact, despite the modest aims of the author, American academic Hannah Carlson. “I was very careful to make each chapter