Between Africa and Us
How can we measure the distance between points on Earth? Can civilization and culture be standardized equally? Is there a fixed appearance of Africa? Does the face of the seen change when the way of seeing is changed? Through the examination of multiple historical perspectives from Taiwan in relation to the world, how has the modern world map been shaped? What role does the so-called “West” play? And how does “Africa” appear (or not) in our view at different times? How and why should we re-examine our perceptions and understanding of Africa?
Date：
2023/8/5 Sat.13:00-14:00
Venue:
2F Sun Hall
Wang Chun-Yen
Wang Chun-Yen holds a BA in Chinese Literature and an MA in Drama and Theatre from National Taiwan University, and receives his PhD in Theatre Arts from Cornell University. As an assistant professor of Performance and Cultural Studies at National Taiwan University, Wang teaches various courses, including “Cultural Translation,”“Interdisciplinary Humanities and Contemporary Taiwan,” and “Transnational Chinese Theater and Cultural Criticism.” He is the recipient of the S-An Cultural Foundation Aesthetic Essay Award, Taiwan Merits Scholarships, Fulbright Scholarship, etc. Wang’s research interest lies in contemporary Taiwanese theatre and cultural translation, and has long focused on the relationship between epistemology and aesthetics. In recent years, he concentrates on the interdisciplinary performance of global Chinese. Wang is a regular contributor for Performing Arts Reviews (https://pareviews.ncafroc.org.tw/) sponsored by the National Culture and Arts Foundation.
What I've Learned from Plants
From ancient times to the present, from basic necessities such as food, clothing, shelter, and transportation to leisure and art, there is almost no aspect of human culture and life that is not built upon plants.
Plants connect the sky and the earth, as well as time and space, and so when we begin to observe the “phenomena of plants,” we are also beginning to understand the world and ourselves.
Date：
2023/8/5 Sat.16:30-17:30
Venue:
11F Studio4
Huang Han-Yau
Huang Han-Yau received his master’s degree from the School of Forestry and Resource Conservation at the National Taiwan University.
He is a freelance illustrator and environmental educator. His illustrations have been seen in the publications about science and environment, and the children’s magazines. He also a lecturer who teaches ecology at the Yonghe Community College.
His works including a children’s picture book Little Black Dots on the Fence, an environment lesson plan collection Eyes of Wilderness, and a field guide The Serendipity of Moth, a Year’s watch in Guanwu Cloud Forest. His short story Tree Shaking was awarded the First Prize of China Time Literary Award.
In 2016, he started the investigation and writing project about the environmental history of the Zhiben Wetland in Taitung. During this period, the city government planned to build a large-scale solar power plant over the wetland, which then aroused the environmental movements. As a participant, he wrote down this experience and published it in his new book The Lost River.
The Creative Practice of Becoming-With in the Era of the Climate Crisis
In the past few years, as we faced one wave of COVID-19 crisis after another, humanity has also been confronting the relatively more insignificant “climate crisis.” This experience has been nothing short of science fictional, but our thought leaders have been teaching us to learn to coexist with viruses, constantly mutating and evolving in order to survive. When we talk about “ecology,” the crucial element is the transformation of our methods, attitudes, and perspectives. As we contemplate nature and the environment, we’ve been gradually constructing a future with sustainable and symbiotic way.
(1) Ecological Art More Than an Issue
As the climate crisis becomes an increasingly integral part of daily reality, ecological thinking in artistic practice is shifting more and more towards political and social aspects rather than solely focusing on natural flora and fauna. Creating “ecologically” is a matter of the artist's personal stance, the change of the artistic practice and attitude, recognizing that humans and artists themselves are a fundamental part of the ecological system, and thus coalescing and resonating with non-human flora and fauna, or even non-living and abstract concepts. Naturally, this is a collective and material practice that is constantly transforming, leading to the construction of new bodies, new creators, and the practice itself.
Date：
2023/8/8 Tue. 19:00-21:00
Venue:
11F Studio3
(2) Witch, Queer, Cyborg and Ecology
The ecofeminism movement that began in the 1970s has made a strong comeback amidst the climate crisis. Witches have also re-emerged in the political arena, battling against capitalist chauvinism. Alternative knowledge systems and traditional practices, such as wizardry and witchcraft, are gradually gaining recognition from the mainstream science. The once mystical earth is actually replete with “unnatural” and non-binary queer elements. The cyborg concept of merging with non-human and non-living entities, which originally had a radical punk connotation, has evolved into a symbiotic relationship with companion species, flowing together and transcending the anthropocentric perspective, becoming one with the environment and the surrounding world.
Date：
2023/8/9 Wed. 19:00-21:00
Venue:
11F Studio3
(3) Afrofuturism and the Others
What insights can we gain from “Afro-futurism,” which has persisted for over half a century, if it is more than just a creative style, for those of us in Taiwan? When various communities, including speculative Science Fictional Asian, Gulf, and Indigenous Futurism, envision their futures, the designs may not necessarily be scientific, but they certainly involve fictional narratives that create identity, heal post-colonial histories, and use collective bodies to both criticize and embrace technology…which opens the door to possibilities while speculatively “becoming” aliens and others.
Date：
2023/8/10 Thr. 19:00-21:00
Venue:
11F Studio3
Chan Yu-Chieh
Chan Yu-Chieh is a freelance writer and translator based in Paris. He holds a PhD in aesthetics and cultural studies from the Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne. His writing has been featured in various magazines and platforms, including ARTCO Monthly, Artist, PAR Performing Arts Redefined, and Funscreen. He has also translated several works, such as Un art écologique: Création plasticienne et anthropocène. Previously, Chan worked in Taiwan film industry and had his works showcased at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. His recent research is oriented towards post-human philosophy and the art of becoming-with across performance, film and curatorial practice.
Based on Tree/True Stories and My Interdisciplinary Writing
As a theater/dance writer who has ventured into writing about trees, plants, and nature, it’s often encountered with a question, “Why did you cross such a wide discipline?” Instead of exploring the question about “cross-discipline,” it’s more interesting to investigate whether there is an absolute dichotomy between theater art and nature. This talk involves the speaker’s personal living experience of watching dance performances to discovering trees, and how her writing projects, “A Year with Trees” and “The Stories of Trees,” have unfolded as a cross-species writing practice, and how this practice has affected the way she experience theater art and natural beings.
Date：
2023/8/12 Sat. 16:30-17:30
Venue:
11F Studio3
Tsou Shin-Ning
Tsou Shin-Ning is a gatherer wandering in the forest, a reader, and a person who writes. She used to be a magazine editor and is now a freelance writer. She writes about both art and nature, and strives to integrate the two in her works. Her writing has been featured in various publications, including Encountering Tainan, Tainaner Ensemble since1987, The Poet Who Plants Trees, Magazine Beyond Their Time, and The Making of Cloud Gate. In recent years, her articles have been published in online and offline media such as Initium Media, OKAPI, Foutain, Rhythms Monthly, Film Appreciation Journal, Macao’s Books and the City, and PAR Performing Arts Redefined. She also collects her writings on her website, “Singing Like Forest.” (https://singinglikeforest.com/) Tsou has received grants from the National Culture and Arts Foundation for writing “The Stories of Trees in Taiwan” in both 2016 and 2022.
Curating the Current: Towards Feminism and Ecological Art
In the face of the intricate relationship among global geopolitics, economy, and ecology, as well as a wide array of unprecedented crises, humans can no longer discuss environmental or climate threats while viewing fragments of relevant issues in isolation. Instead, we must acknowledge that a broader understanding of sustainability further embodies social equality, justice, and inclusiveness. The curator Wu Hung-Fei will draw from her curating experience to convey the deep-rooted entanglements of feminism and ecological art in curatorial awareness and approaches. Using fluidity as her method, Wu will exemplify how art is realized in an era of climate crises.
Date：
2023/8/17 Thr. 19:30-21:00
Venue: Sun Hall
Wu Hung-Fei
Wu Hung-Fei
Wu Hung-Fei is a curator and researcher based in Taipei, Taiwan. Graduated from University of Essex with MA Gallery Studies and Critical Curating, now the curatorial director of Solid Art (since 2019).
Since 2015, she has been deeply engaged in the art’s value on sustainability that connects spiritual, ecological and social discourse. Previous research projects include Creative Sustainability Island Mapping (Taiwan) and On the Edge of Europe: Where Art Meets Ecology in 2017 and 2018 retrospectively. She is also an Asian Cultural Council Fellow (2022-2023) with an ongoing research on non-Western knowledge system and worldview in Asia from a feminist perspective and a collaborative approach.
Sun & Sea, and Thoughts on Ecological Practice
Reflecting on the opera-performance Sun & Sea by Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė, Vaiva Grainytė, and Lina Lapelytė – and drawing inspiration from her most recent research and practice, curator Lucia Pietroiusti, whose work focuses on the intersections of art and ecology, discusses a few possible roles that art and culture can play in the environmental emergency. The talk will also try to address the question "what is ecological practice?" when we think about contemporary art and culture today.
Date：
2023/8/20 Sun. 15:30-16:30
Venue:
11F Studio2
This session is conducted in English, with Mandarin simultaneous interpretation.
Lucia Pietroiusti
Lucia Pietroiusti (b. 1985) is a curator working at the intersection of art, ecology and systems, usually outside of the gallery space. Pietroiusti is the founder of the General Ecology project at Serpentine, London, where she is currently Strategic Advisor for Ecology. Current curatorial projects include Sun & Sea (since 2019), The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish (with Filipa Ramos, since 2018). Recent projects include Persones Persons, the 8th Biennale Gherdeïna (May-September 2022, with Filipa Ramos). Recent publications include More-than-Human (with Andrés Jaque and Marina Otero Verzier, 2020); Microhabitable (with Fernando García-Dory, 2022) and PLANTSEX (2019).
Faivā Haka; Art of Cultural Action
Latai Taumoepeau is an Australian artist, her body of work spans more than a decade of presenting cathartic works about the impact and injustice of climate change on low lying islands of the Pacific Ocean. Latai means reminisce and Tau-moe-peau means battle-with-waves. Her names come from her ancestors from the Island Kingdom of Tonga.
She has been mourning the eventual loss of her ancestral islands through her work. Centreing her indigenous concepts of faiva (performance) and fonua (land/body) in her contemporary work to raise awareness, empathy and action in support of frontline coastal communities.
Latai is now fully evolving her art practice into a deeper relationship of body and land advocacy into mitigation and adaptation. Latai will expand her cultural performance practice to that of her ancestors for the next ten years by growing a tropical food forest and training in celestial navigation on the seas as a form of body centered knowledge practice where the past and future are one.
Join Latai for her keynote from a sea of Islands in the Global South.
Date：
2023/8/25 Fri. 15:00-15:50
Venue:
11F Studio2
This session is conducted in English, with Mandarin simultaneous interpretation.
Latai Taumoepeau
Latai Taumoepeau makes live-art-work. Her faivā (body-centred practice) is from her homelands, the Island Kingdom of Tonga and her birthplace Eora Nation. She mimicked, trained and un-learned dance, in multiple institutions of learning, beginning with her village, a suburban church hall, the club and a university.
Her faivā (performing art) centres Tongan philosophies of relational vā (space) and tā (:me); cross-pollinating ancient and everyday temporal practice to make visible the impact of climate crisis in the Pacific. She conducts urgent environmental movements and actions to assist transformation in Oceania.
Latai engages in the socio-political landscape of Australia with sensibilities in race, class & the female body politic; committed to bringing the voice of unseen communities to the frangipani-less foreground. Latai has presented and exhibited across borders, countries, and coastlines. Her works are held in private and public collections including written publications.
Latai won the 2022 ANTI Festival Live Art Prize in Finland and was recently awarded a 2021 Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship, and the Australia Council of the Arts Fellowship in the Emerging and Experimental Arts category. She is also a recipient of the Prague Quadrennial - Excellence in Performance Design Award in 2019.
In the near future Latai will return to her ancestral home and continue the ultimate faivā of deep sea voyaging and celestial navigation before she becomes ancestor.
