The Taipei Art Festival (台北藝術節) celebrates its 20th edition this year with a diverse program of performances, workshops and talks curated by new director Tang Fu-kuen (鄧富權). Assembly (為了 — 在一起) examines future human co-existence, self-determination and probes the complex relationships between individual and society. “Taiwan, oft-admired as Asia’s progressive frontier, is the site from which ‘Assembly’ seeks to reflexively stage ‘social democracy’ and ‘self-determination,’” writes Tang in a statement. The program started last month and will continue through October; be sure to checkout the festival’s THINK BAR section, which features an international repertoire of events including Filipino artist Eisa Jocson’s Macho Dancer, a “transgressive gender-bending performance inspired by a seductive form of dancing performed only by young men in Manila nightclubs.” Korean artist and composer Jaha Koo’s Cuckoo is a critically-charged performance between himself and his artificially intelligent rice cookers. The two-day program of Noise Assembly, the Taipei edition of Asian Meeting Festival, brings together 10 Taiwan-based musicians and 5 Southeast Asian musicians to engage in the idea of an immersive sound forest that encourages an experience of listening together.
■ Event times and venues vary by event, please check Taipei Art Festival Web site for full schedule: www.taipeifestival.org/
■ Until Oct. 21
Photo Courtesy of National Taiwan Museumy
Noisesound Fest (聲波造動) is an exhilarating set of noise performances and archival exhibitions hosted by Taipei’s newly-opened Boven Magazine Library. The library, possessing magazines on design, art, fashion, lifestyle and photography is tucked in the back streets of Taipei’s east area. Boven regularly hosts talks, events and a program of exhibitions in its two-level space. Currently on view is a display of publications, tape cassettes, fliers and other documents that provide “a glimpse of the ephemeral development of local sound artists since the 1990s,” reads the show’s preface. Highlights include rare copies of the legendary sound zine NOISE established by Wang Fu-jui (王福瑞) in the 1993; reprints of fliers and hand-written drafts about experimental sound activities and theories that involved artists Lin Chi-wei (林其蔚), The Zero & Sound Liberation Organization (零與聲音解放組織) and works from Taipei International Post-Industrial Art Festival (台北國際後工業藝術展). The archival presentation offers a generous introduction to the forerunners of the sound scene, the creative climate of the 90s and their ongoing interests in sonic investigations that include “performing with analogy and digital sound medias showing linear and nonlinear, avant-garde and industrial, impromptu and provocative, performing music and sound designs; presenting all the different possibilities of sound design and transfer.”
■ Boven Magazine Library (BOVEN雜誌圖書館), B1, 18, Aly 5, Ln 107, Fuxing S Rd, Taipei City (台北市大安區復興南路一段107巷5弄18號B1), tel: (02) 2778-7526. Open Daily from 12pm to 10pm
■ Until Sunday
Photo Courtesy of Eslite Gallery
Tai Chi-hsien’s (戴吉賢) digital artwork often reflects on how technological progress drives civilization. His most recent video work, Mirage (蜃城), is currently on display at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Taichung, as part of the museum’s selection of digital art proposals for this year. Mirage depicts a cityscape that blends the virtual with memories of the real — a hybrid vision of the world driven by “the insatiable desire of humanity” for spectacle, according to the exhibition preface. Our sense of reality is continually in transition, and urban lives are becoming increasingly accelerated and superficial, says the artist, “no matter how tantalizing the distant neon light is to one’s eye, it is, indeed, little more than the facade of the flashy night.” Personal sentiments of disillusionment and moral musings are revealed in the work through images of silhouetted buildings and urban architecture. The work appears abstract and almost expressionistic and features an overlay of painted white lines and layered nuances of color. While the work offers an allegorical view of the progress of human civilization, it also points towards the future, asking questions such as: “Will the acceleration of our world end in …a state of ‘going out of control’ amid nothing but the switch between cities (computer programs) and digital codes?”
■ National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (國立台灣美術館), 2, Wuquan W Rd Sec 1, Taichung City (台中市五權西路一段2號), tel: (04) 2373-3552. Open Tuesdays to Fridays from 9am to 5pm, Saturdays and Sundays from 9am to 6pm.
■ Until Sept. 30
Photo Courtesy of National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts
Kino Satoshi Solo Exhibition (木野智史瓷器個展) at National Taiwan University Library will close on Sunday. Kino Satoshi is an acclaimed Japanese ceramicist who recently set up a studio in New Taipei City’s Sanjhih District (三芝) to pursue his interest in Taiwanese ceramic art. The originally Kyoto-based artist began working with ceramics at the age of 15 and has since then continually pursued the craft of hand thrown ceramics. Kino has held exhibitions in Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, New York and, in 2014, New Taipei City. Every piece of hand thrown clay requires substantial time and labor, says the artist; he is committed to the challenge of exploring the medium to its true potential. Kino’s Sanjhih studio has a custom-built kiln that allows him to experiment with projects of large scale that require great technical knowledge. In this exhibition, the works on view speak to a natural, simple and ideal state of living.
■ National Taiwan University Library (國立臺灣大學圖書館), 1, Roosevelt Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (台北市羅斯福路四段1號), tel: (02) 3366-2326. Open Mondays to Saturdays from 8am to 10pm, Sundays 8am to 5pm.
■ Until Sunday
Photo Courtesy of Taipei Art Festival
Hsia Yan and His Times (夏陽和時代) is a group exhibition of the Ton Fan Art Group and Fifth Moon Group, two pioneering painting associations active since the 1950’s. While The Fifth Moon group was inspired by modernism, both groups grew into a shared interest of integrating influences from the east and west. “Taiwan entered a period of martial law that tightly gripped its people after leaving the 1940s behind, but amidst this repressive atmosphere, art flourished as young and eager minds absorbed an influx of European and American ideas and cultures,” writes the gallery press release. The two groups were instrumental in pushing the boundaries of Taiwanese art and instigating the local modern art movement. Many members of the group travelled to Europe and America to study the culture and ideas that sprouted “on fertile grounds in the free West,” says the gallery. Hsia Yan (夏陽) is one of the founders of Ton Fan Art Group; he grounded his practice in Chinese characteristics and philosophy while exposing himself to different western cultures. His work, Shisui (拾穗), is a reinterpretation of the iconic 19th century painting The Gleaners by Jean-Francois Millet.
■ Eslite Gallery (誠品畫廊), 5F, 11 Songgao Rd, Taipei City (台北市松高路11號5樓), tel: (02) 8789-3388. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Through Aug. 26
Photo Courtesy of Boven Magazine Library
When nature calls, Masana Izawa has followed the same routine for more than 50 years: heading out to the woods in Japan, dropping his pants and doing as bears do. “We survive by eating other living things. But you can give faeces back to nature so that organisms in the soil can decompose them,” the 74-year-old said. “This means you are giving life back. What could be a more sublime act?” “Fundo-shi” (“poop-soil master”) Izawa is something of a celebrity in Japan, publishing books, delivering lectures and appearing in a documentary. People flock to his “Poopland” and centuries-old wooden “Fundo-an” (“poop-soil house”) in
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
For anyone on board the train looking out the window, it must have been a strange sight. The same foreigner stood outside waving at them four different times within ten minutes, three times on the left and once on the right, his face getting redder and sweatier each time. At this unique location, it’s actually possible to beat the train up the mountain on foot, though only with extreme effort. For the average hiker, the Dulishan Trail is still a great place to get some exercise and see the train — at least once — as it makes its way
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
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