Archívum címkék: Taiwan

The world is that what you fight for.

As an island, the history of Taiwan is complex and multifaceted, shaped by centuries of migration, colonization, and political upheaval. Taiwan’s indigenous peoples, who are thought to have inhabited the island for thousands of years, were gradually displaced by waves of immigrants from China and other parts of Asia. The island was colonized by the Dutch in the 17th century, and later came under the control of the Qing dynasty in the 19th century.

After World War II, Taiwan was returned to Chinese control, but the country soon found itself embroiled in a civil war between the nationalist forces of the Kuomintang (KMT) and the communist forces of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In 1949, the KMT were defeated by the CCP and retreated to Taiwan, which they declared to be the seat of the Republic of China (ROC).

Chi-Wen Gallery is a contemporary art gallery located in a townhouse in Taipei that showcases contemporary art. The gallery has been operating since 2004 and is known for its particular emphasis on new media and experimental art forms. It has presented works by both established and emerging artists and hosted a variety of exhibitions, performances and events. Since 2018 it is also the base of Chi-Wen Productions, an organisation dedicated to produce and document artist film, video and performance with a special focus on works dealing with political issues and subaltern communities. Most notably, they produced A Dream of Wholeness in Parts in 2021 and If I had the words to tell you we wouldn’t be here now in 2019 – both written and directed by Sin Wai Kin formerly known as Victoria Sin. Chi-Wen Gallery also participates in international art fairs such as Art Basel Hong Kong, Loop Barcelona or Frieze New York and has a presence in the global contemporary art scene.

Chang Li-Ren is an artist from Taiwan who graduated from the Graduate Institute of Plastic Arts at Tainan National University of the Arts. His body of work mainly consists of video installations, conceptual art and animations created using a unique form of story-telling using virtual worlds between imagination and reality. He also works in the gaming industry.

Chang’s work has already been featured at Chi-Wen before in Migratory Birds, Sea Breeze, Phonograph (fall 2020). He showed a collaborative project with artists Yuan Cheng and Lanxin Rui titled FM 100.8. This piece was dealing with their individual relationships to Taiwanese national narratives and the histories that precede them. Earlier that year, Chang Li-Ren showed at the gallery’s exhibition Every Man is an Artist. This show, bearing the subtitle Talking About Artists’ Social Engagement was inspired by Joseph Beuys’s notion of “Social Sculpture”, an idea for a future in which every living person becomes an active agent in shaping their social environment.