The concept of “island chain” was formulated by former U.S. Secretary of State SecState John Foster Dulles in 1951 during the Cold War, referring to West Pacific islands. It is a geographical concept with political and military implications. As a part of the island chain, Taiwan is located at the junction of land and sea, where continental history and Austronesian history converge to create diverse, complex vocabulary and where aesthetics exudes sui generis charm in the clash of cultures.
Starting from the exhibition Forest of being Time I curated at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum in 2023, this speech is intended to discuss how contemporary image art exhibitions can become a “heterotopia” that mirrors Taiwan as an intermediary site of transition. Following this context, I try to cite several recent collection exhibitions as examples and treat the understanding of the Cold War as the entry point, so as to present the clash of continental (China and the U.S.) and oceanic (Austronesian) aesthetics in postwar Taiwan and to reveal how these exhibitions have become slices of memories in our time. Finally, standing on the wreckage of wars, the Taiwan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2024 embodied an alternative way of contemplation. Titled Everyday War, it represents the artist’s nightmare-like memories with images, prompting the viewers to relive and rethink our collective and tumultuous “everyday” in geopolitical conflicts to which we’ve been accustomed ourselves. The curator Abby Chen once used the term “island-thinking” to describe Taiwan’s unique regional attributes. Located on the continental periphery and existing as a part of the island chain, Taiwan belongs to neither the sea nor the land, yet it serves as a place of multicultural linkage, exchange, and transformation, and meanwhile it is a space and field that accommodates the clamor of the multitude.
Chief Curator, Exhibition Department, Taipei Fine Arts Museum
Cheng-Yi Chien is currently the Chief Curator of the Exhibition Department at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum. Born in Taipei, she has previously served as an Assistant Researcher at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum and a Senior Curator at the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts. Her areas of expertise include photography and video art, cultural studies, art exhibition curation, art administration, art management, and art criticism.
Her curatorial experience includes projects such as Open End: TFAM Screening Project (Taipei Fine Arts Museum, 2024), The Infinite Forest (Taipei Fine Arts Museum, 2023), and Fiction: Double-City Project (Taipei Fine Arts Museum, 2019). She has also curated WAWA: Contemporary Austronesian Art (Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, 2018), Leave No One Behind: Detective Events in Contemporary Art (Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, 2017), Southward Migration: 2015 Video Collection Exhibition (Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, 2015), 2015 Kaohsiung International Container Arts Festival: Ark of Tomorrow (Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, 2015), Women─Home: In the Name of Asian Female Art (Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, 2014), and Love You Forever: Biennial of Animation Aesthetics (Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, 2013). Additionally, she has participated in the 2024 Taiwan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale and organized the Taipei Biennial from 2018 to 2022. Her related art criticisms can be found in journals such as Modern Art.
Curator, Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab
Wei-Tzu Chuang is the curator of C-LAB and the former editor-in-chief of Artist Magazine. Chuang has been highly interested in the diversity of contemporary art in Taiwan. Her research focuses on the change of artistic ideas and technology rendered in the exhibition and performance, as well as the gender issues in art history. Her recent curatorial projects are Signal Z (2023, nominated for the 22nd Taishin Arts Award), The Unrestricted Society (2022, nominated for the 21st Taishin Arts Award), (De)phallocentrism (2022), Project: The Folly (2021, nominated for the 20th Taishin Arts Award), and Display on Live in C-LAB annual exhibition Re: Play (2020).
Art Director, mt.project
Photo by Etang Chen
Eva Lin is the Art Director of mt.project and an independent curator known for her off-site curatorial projects at unconventional venues to engage in experiments that constitute her interdisciplinary practices. Lin’s dynamic interests drive her into alternative thinking and response to cultural production in diverse forms in order to extend the agency and force of art. Her recent curatorial projects include Sleepless in Stone (Jinguashi, 2024), From Nowhere to Now Here (Romantic Route 3, 2023), Underground Matter (Matsu Biennial, 2022), You and I Don’t Live on the Same Planet (co-curator, Centre Pompidou-Metz, 2022), 2020 Taipei Biennial public program curator (Taipei Fine Arts Museum, 2020-2021), 7th Taiwan International Video Art Exhibition – ANIMA (co-curator, 2020), Ryoji Ikeda Solo Exhibition (co-curator, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, 2019), The Hidden South (South Link Highway of Taitung, 2018), and Parallax: Damage Control (Chung Hsing Cultural and Creative Park, 2017)