Bat Night Market tells the tales of the extraordinary bat species, examining their imperative nature in our global ecosystem and teaching us that conservation of the key species is more crucial now than ever before.
As audiences embark on this strange journey into a futuristic Taiwanese night market, we are invited to explore what interspecies resourcefulness and creative food solutions might look like, in the not-so-distant future, and in the face of the climate crisis.
Set in an imagined night market where bat species are extinct, Bat Night Market intersects performance, speculative design and science. We invite visitors to celebrate these enigmatic animals in an evening of discussions, games, tastings and sensory experiences.
Bat Night Market is an international collaboration between designer UK artist Robert Johnson and artist Ku Kuang-Yi, Taiwan/Netherlands.
Ku Kuang-Yi, Taiwan
Assistant Professor, Institute of Applied Arts, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University.
Ku Kuang-Yi was born in Taipei, Taiwan, recently based in the Netherlands and Taiwan. He co-founded TW BioArt (a bioart community in Taiwan) to stimulate the fields of BioArt and Science+Art in Taiwan. He has graduated with triple master degrees with social design from Design Academy Eindhoven, dentistry from National Yang-Ming University and communication design from Shih Chien University. Formerly a dentist, Ku is a bio-artist and speculative designer. He attempts to expand the possibilities of combining arts, design and science. His works often focus on clinical medicine, human body, interspecies interaction and sexuality. He tries to explore ethical issues in the scientific field through artistic practice and design methods, aiming to investigate the relationships among technology, individual and the environment.
Ku Kuang-Yi’s Tiger Penis Project has been awarded Gijs Bakker Award 2018, the annual prize for the best project by a graduating master’s student in Design Academy Eindhoven. He has also won the 1st prize of Taipei Digital Art Awards in 2015 with The Fellatio Modification Project, where he involves body modification, gender studies, queer theories, and dentistry all together. His works were featured in international media such as New Scientist, The Huffington Post, Elephant Magazine, DAMN° Magazine, Dezeen, Designboom, VICE, Dazed Digital, Daily Mail, New York Post and so on.
Robert Johnson, England
Robert Johnson is a British designer with an MA in Social Design from the Design Academy Eindhoven and founder of Studio Ficta, a creative start-up that fuses film, interactive design, and design research across anthropological, ecological, and social contexts.
Working with film and interactive design, Johnson's projects create alternative narratives using fictional writing as a design research tool, creating characters and dialogues that highlight issues surrounding social attitudes towards labour, materials, and waste streams within the circular economy. Using this specific approach to researching holistic systems, developed during his Master degree, he explores cross-collaborative methods for human innovation from the most unexpected corners of society.
In 2020, Johnson completed his residency at the Design Museum, London, where his project titled Fatconomy presented fat as a valuable resource in urban society, illustrating the potential of discarded fats for the economy, material innovation and urban planning.
Lead Artist: Ku Kuang-Yi
Lead Artist: Robert Johnson
Dramaturg: Huang Ding-Yun
Food Artist: Rain Wu
Taiwan Producer: Chan Hui-Chun (Holly)
UK Producer: Lin Hao-Wen
UK Production Manager: Charlotte Ranson
Scientists: Gemma Bowsher, Martha Gallardo Galaviz, Lucy Di-Silvio
Producer for Phase 1 &2 R&D: Chen Chun-Ting
UK Chef: Luke Keyte
Graphic Designer: Chou Po-Chun
Motion Graphics Director: Lee Chia-Hua
Motion Graphics Assistants: Huang Xuan-Jie, Deer Sheng
Design Engineer / Game Interaction: Lin Chia-Hung (Mick)
Stage Manager: Chen Yi-Chen
Stage Technical Director: Yu Ray-Pei
Video Engineer: He Yu-Wei
Live Sound Engineer: Blackrice Creative Studio LTD.
Lighting Designer and Master electrician: Lien Ssu-Yun
Performers: Kao Nai-Sen, Lin Fang-Fang, Sora Ling, Tsai Cheng-Han, Yang Qi-Yin (listed in alphabetical order of the last name)
Production Facilitation: Holly Production Studio
Special Thanks to Gemma Bowsher, Chen Chun-Ting, Chou Cheng-Han, Chou Po-Chun, Lucy Di-Silvio, Martha Gallardo Galaviz, Luke Keyte, Lee Chia-Hua, Sun Wei-Lun (listed in alphabetical order of the last name)
Funded by ARTWAVE and the British Council as part of the International Collaboration Grants
Co-Commissioned by LIFT and Taipei Performing Arts Center
