A large solo exhibition that explores the themes of family, belongings and home by award-winning Philippine artist Marina Cruz opened in Taipei yesterday as the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts reopened after being shut for 10 weeks.
The Tide Table exhibition, a look back over 20 years of her work, highlights Cruz’s poignant relationship with her childhood home in Bulacan province, about 24km north of Manila, the museum said.
The 94 works on display at the Kuandu Museum include paintings on canvas, fabric collages, laminated photographs and embroidery from Cruz’s contemporary art platform, the Mind Set Art Center, one of the exhibition’s organizers.
People wait to see Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara’s free exhibition at the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts in Taipei in March.Photo courtesy of the GACC
Cruz developed a deep connection with the historical objects in her family home, where her maternal grandmother also lived, the art center said.
Known for her photorealistic paintings of vintage clothes, Cruz’s work highlights the folds, creases, patterns and stitching in the fabric of vintage dresses.
Her works depict handmade clothes, sewn by her family, and record the details of their residence, which is part of her personal history, the art center said.
In a prerecorded video, the Philippine artist said that she works with mundane objects, such as clothes, because she thinks that they provide insights into the frailties, beauty and vulnerabilities of humans.
“I hope people who see the works will ponder on the idea of what a home is, or examine the belongings that we have, and the idea of being able to belong to a family or to someone,” she said.
“Tide Table” is a reference to a calendar that marks high tides, which frequently cause flooding in her village, Cruz said.
“The flooding doesn’t come unannounced. It comes at an expected time,” she said. “We just look at the table on the calendar, and we know what time and how high the flood will be. It’s all there.”
Born in 1982, Cruz graduated with distinction from the University of the Philippines.
In 2012, she was named an Artist Awardee, one of 13, by the Cultural Center of the Philippines. She has also won the Grand Prize at the Philippine Art Awards, as well as a Philip Morris Award.
Her solo exhibition in Taipei, scheduled to run until Oct. 17, is curated by Patrick Flores, who is to be chief curator for Taiwan at the Venice Biennale next year.
To comply with disease prevention measures, which limit indoor gatherings to 50 people, online appointments are required to visit the Kuandu Museum.
The museum, which had been closed since May, when a national level 3 COVID-19 alert was implemented, reopened to the public yesterday as the alert was lowered to level 2.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,