\n\t\t\n\t\n\n\n
By utilizing movements, tractions, streams of the undertow from the highest tide recorded in this month (October 2020) impacted from La Niña in polluted shallow
\n\nseawater, Irwan Ahmett and Tita Salina undertook an unusual encounter among three elements that fuse in the crossing of human emotion, destruction of ecology
\n\nand clash of ideologies. This intervention is a pilgrimage to stories of sorrow in the islands that led to dead ends except to sink.
\n\nSeafarer
\n\nA man from the Bugis tribe, an eminent tribe as a tough sea explorer from Makassar, Sulawesi in Indonesia. This tribe has also explored Siam and the descendants remain in Bangkok in an area called Makkasan. To his family, seawave is a way out to survive in Jakarta. Everyday he has to work harder and harder due to the dwindling catch impacted from overfishing, pollution and land/island reclamation.
\n\nUbi Besar Island
\n\nAn island that has completely disappeared now because of abrasion and sand mining. In 1954, there were climate refugees, an exodus of Ubi Besar island dwellers
\n\ndue to the quality of life was worsening. Along with the construction of international airport Soekarno-Hatta and the rise of sea level, the island had gone underwater. What can be seen now is dead corals and strong current draws any kind of objects with no escape.
\n\nA Rebel
\n\nKartosoewirjo was the leader of rebellion group DI/TII - Darul Islam/Tentara Islam Indonesia (Islamic Armed Forces of Indonesia), he declared an Islamic State in
\n\nIndonesia in 1949, led guerilla operations for years until he was captured in his hideout by military and civilians. The freedom fighter was finally sentenced to death
\n\nand executed in Ubi Besar Island in 1962, where at that time some parts of the island was still above the water as seen on the photo documentation of the execution of Kartosoewirjo. Although his grave and the island have been submerged, the ideology has not. It changes in many different forms adjusting and lurking the stream of civilization and the fading of democratic values in Indonesia.
\n\nFilming location: Ubi Besar Island, Kepulauan Seribu, Jakarta Bay, Indonesia
\n\n\n\n
\n\n
Cranial Relic
\n\nIndonesia|2020|Color|7min4sec
\n\nAmidst the pandemic worsening in Indonesia, Irwan and Tita deepen their relations with fear by utilizing gravitation and tens of artifacts they have been collecting for the last 6 years.
\n\nFear is very archaic, it's a chemical chain reaction embedded in the cranial. Itinstructs the body to react to increase heart rate, to produce cold sweats and anxiety irresistibly, the feeling is worrying.
\n\nThe reaction against fear is existed in every species. It works as a form of self-defense or showing recognition of power beyond self-authority. Turtles, Mimosa pudica, pangolins respond to fear by shrinking their bodies as a form of protection. Humans could be the only species that doing the opposite, they would 'enlarge the size' individually or collectively. Therefore, humans can be the most dangerous group of apes.
\n\nFear is like a relic nests in the cranial waiting to be ignored or resurrected by ourselves.
\n\n\n\n
\n\n
Bila Anda Tiba Anda Menyesal - When You Arrive You'll Regret
\n\nIndonesia|2020|Color|43min51sec
\n\nThe maritime life and the complexity of matters that accompany conflict interest in one of Asia's busiest waters, the Strait of Malacca are accumulated to bodies.
\n\nThe other side of stories from archipelago assembled and retold by Irwan and Tita after they conducted visits to several islands in Riau Archipelago especially to Batam Island, a region that was once projected to become an industrial area in the 70s but now is facing tough challenges with social problems and tangling of interests and power centralized in Java Island, which created uncontrolled distortion. Observations were made by sea travel and encounters with equator passers from Nusantara. The rise of issues accompanied geopolitical turmoil such as borders, colonial period, sultanate period and globalization become the initial thought of retelling outside the mainstream narrative. Through artistic intervention, conversation, site-specific visits and an oath, this essay film is the background of the work Name Laundering*.
\n\n-------
\n\n*Name Laundering: A lecture performance project to reexamine the relation of Indonesia and Singapore in Malacca strait as the most important waters region in South East Asia. Controls and conflicts stretch out as long as sacred oaths thrust Into the Land of Fighters as well agreements of greedy corporations. The development of the work is rooted on the impact of the colonialism, the sabotage armed forces in the confrontation with Malaysia, the practice of seafarers hijack
\n\nships, the 'smokelen' (smuggling) routes and the ecological destruction resulting land clearings and uncontrollable exploitation of natural resources. Irwan and Tita create a 'polite subversive' act to respond the state control haunted by economic interest and dogmatic agenda of nationalism. The acts are eight plans to penetrate
\n\nthe border of Singapore without state permissions.
\n\n***
\n\nThis essay film and the artist talk is part of the final presentation of Nusantara in Future Tense workshop.
\n\nSupervisor: Ministry of Culture (Taiwan)
\n\nOrganizer: The Cultural Taiwan Foundation
\n\nConcept and execution: Nusantara Archive Project Curated Esther Lu, soft/WALL/studs
\n\nCoordinated by Esther Lu (Taiwan), Kamiliah Bahdar (Singapore)
\n\nVenue supported by soft/WALL/studs (Singapore), OCAC (Taiwan)
\n\nAdministration supported by The Digital Art Foundation
\n\nSpecial thanks to all members of soft/WALL/studs, ila, Div, Norah Lea, Nurul Huda Rashid, Syaheedah Iskandar, Siddhartz Perez, Tan Zi Hao, Okui Lala, Irwan & Tita, Lo Shih-Tung, Sheryl Cheung
\n\n\n\n
Homesick Tongue
\n\nCHEN Hui-ping
\n\nTaiwan│2019│color│81 min
\n\nKollyan's hometown is in Cambodia. she has to leave her family in Taiwan, in order to reunite with her parents. Whenever Sally follows her mother's steps of home cooking based on her memory, she feels as though she has returned to her mother's side. As for me, an encounter of an identity mix-up at a foreign country's immigration checkpoint made me constantly wonder "Who am I?" ever since.
\n\n\n\n
Cold Chain
\n\nHOU I-ting
\n\nTaiwan│2019│color│26 min
\n\nArtist HOU I-ting has long been paid attention to the female profile in different social structures, especially female workers in the labor- and skill-intensive production industry. Cold Chain is a documentary that uses interviews as its primary narrative method, and sees artist visits Bogota, the capital of Columbia, to observe the flow line of an international cut flower company. Additionally, workers were surveyed, and an expert in production line improvement was interviewed to better understand the working environment and gender structure of local females. The title is a technical term from logistics that also refers to a type of modern system engineering that helps preserve the quality of delicate flowers during transportation. This in turn further implicates the governmentality behind modern society and the various production relationships humans are involved in, from manufacturer to being the article of manufacture themselves.
\n\n\n\n
Sewing Fields— Li̍k-sú tsiam-tsílâng, 2015
\n\nHOU I-ting
\n\nTaiwan | 2019
\n\nStarting in 2015 and continuing to today, Sewing Fields is a long-term participation-based project that uses the historical documents of female schools in Taiwan in the Japanese colonial period as a foundation and also incorporates live sewing in its performance process. It aims to reflect the gender awareness and bodily politics contained within colonial education through recruiting participants and individuals.
\n\n\n\n
Temporary
\n\nHSU Hui-ju
\n\nTaiwan│2017│color│25min
\n\nTemporary workers looking for "help wanted" signs on the walls of an abandoned factory reflect the reality of the working class. After having served their purpose, these temporary workers are immediately discarded by employers who feel no sense of responsibility or emotions towards them. They are "relics" of the modern industrialization process, cast aside to the empty and barren edge of cities.
\n\nWith a non-traditional documentary filming approach, the filmmaker hired three real-life temporary workers to play the role of temporary workers in the film. The abandoned factory is their stage where they recreate a temporary home. They live at the edge of the real and virtual world, at the edge of the city and wilderness, at the edge of family life and rootlessness.
\n\n\n\n
REM Sleep
\n\nJAO Chia-en
\n\nTaiwan│2011│color│26min
\n\nSince 1994, Taiwanese government started "Go South Policy" in order to prevent the over investment in mainland China. In the same time, the government followed the idea of Neoliberalism and imported labors from Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines and Indonesia, in the one hand to reduce the production costs of local industrial and in the other hand to remedy the unbalance of Taiwanese sociality; in October 2011, the number of immigrant workers surpassed 420,000 people.
\n\n"REM Sleep" this work distills via a documentary format the dreams of Indonesian, Filipino, Thai and Vietnamese laborers who have come to Taiwan as short-term migrant workers after Taiwanese government policy shifted in the 90s. Documentation of these dreams in a foreign land serve on one hand as an exploration of the range of effects of a change of environment on the individual, as a result of shifting global economic forces. On the other hand, as documents with no legal ramifications whatsoever, they also avail to the global economic system inhabited by these nomadic individuals a possible means of introspection.
\n\n\n\n
Nia's Door
\n\nLAU Kek-huat
\n\nTaiwan│2015│color│25min
\n\nNia travels far from her home, Philippine, to Taiwan to work as a family maid. Nia likes to keep herself in her private room, where a door separates between her and her employers. This brings displeasure to her female employer and conflicts arise between them. This is a story about a day of Nia's life, which could also resonate for all who are far away from home.
\n\n\n\n
Journeys of a Laundry Mountain
\n\nLana LOCKE
\n\nEngland│2020│color│26min
\n\nFilmed during 2020, artist Lana Locke's autobiographical reflection on her gendered responsibility as a mother for the domestic laundry, becomes a vehicle for considering wider global issues through the crises that emerge during the film. Shot between gentrifying South East London and rural Queensland, her own chaotic domestic environment and that of her parents are intercut with confronting and humorous found and archive footage. The laundry here draws out multiple threads, demonstrating the dense entanglement of colonialism, white privilege, and patriarchy, with the political and ecological causes of Australia's 2020 forest fires, and the coronavirus pandemic.
\n\n\n\n
Blossom
\n\nLIN Han
\n\nTaiwan│2017│color│25min
\n\nDue to the economic and social consensus of the present Taiwan, it is a big challenge for those who wants to create a family with a child of one's own. Not to mention for the marginalized transgendered community, there is a great revolution of equalization that has not yet succeeded.
\n\nCherry identified herself as a drag queen. She just had a fight right before the show, finding out her boyfriend had been cheating sleeping with another girl for a long time. Later, she pulled herself together and walked on her way to work, she met with an abandoned baby. When she was performing sparkly on the stage with her close sister, Lena, they discovered something weird about this baby…
\n\nThe baby that intruded Cherry's life at the night has given her a short fantasy of having an ordinary family with a child. Yet once again, it reminded her and Lena with a cruel reality of their actual life.This is a journey about a drag queen exploring herself with an abandoned baby at an unconventional night. It is also a story about the searching of one's the sense of belonging and one's own.
\n\n\n\n
Tell Me What You Want
\n\nYU Cheng-ta
\n\nTaiwan│2015-2017│color│61min
\n\nTell Me What You Want is about the exchanges of the gazes, desires, friendship, and wanting between a traveler and an exotic culture. This relationship of exchange started when David was on the street in Malate, Manila. He engaged with the marketeers (or "marketings") on the street as a foreigner, and from this strange encounter, they developed friendships. Owing to the needs of shooting the films, a negotiation as well as transaction came along. The various relationships and processes of exchanges are intertwined with reality, the social network, the diverse desires and imaginative gazes and illusions across cultures local to Malate.
\n\n\n'},{title:"About Artists",content:'
Irwan AHMETT & Tita SALINA
\n\nIrwan Ahmett and Tita Salina are self-taught artist duo based in Jakarta. Their initial work is to place the imagination through performative intervention in the midst of chaotic public space of megapolitan Jakarta, which faces the dilemma of uncontrolled urbanization and pollution. The development of networks in art and activist circles has encouraged their artistic practice to progress toward the more profound and deeper circumstances. They are currently working on a long-term project related to geopolitical turmoil in the Ring of Fire - Pacific Rim, the most prone region to natural disasters as well as traumatic consequences which is caused by the persistent ideological violence. They see their high mobility as the main vehicle to participate in residency programs, research, field study and exhibitions especially in specific areas, which are paradoxical such as some heavenly yet deadly beautiful places on earth. Irwan and Tita wanted to find answers about planetary anxieties in regard to human existence by means of evolutionary perspective and to produce knowledge through arts related to injustice, humanity and ecology.
\n\n\n\n
CHEN Hui-ping
\n\nBorn in 1980 in Taiwan. Because of her own experience growing up, she is interested in the underlying existence and life of workers. No matter what is the distance between image and reality, her purpose is to get closer to the truth of the heart.
\n\n\n\n
HOU I-ting
\n\nBorn in 1979 in Kaohsiung, Taiwan
\n\nLives and works in Taipei, Taiwan
\n\nHou I-Ting received a degree from the Taipei National University of the Arts, and later obtained a MFA degree in plastic arts from the Tainan National University of the Arts.
\n\nBy blending imagery and video with embroidery, Hou challenges the way we identify imagery in everyday life, while reconfiguring an otherwise prosaic visual experience. She is especially interested in the female labor condition in the socioeconomic system of the past and of today. Her practice pivots around the changing relationship between the body and imagery over the course of time. In particular, she transforms her on-site sewing performance into a cultural critique on the labor process within a capitalist society.
\n\nShe has exhibited internationally, including Taipei Biennial2020: You and I Don't Live on the Same Planet—The Wild Trail to the World Public Programs, Taipei, Taiwan (2020) We Now Stand — In Order to Map the Future, 21 st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan (2019); Contemporary Art from Asia, Australia and the Pacific: A Selection of Works From QAGOMA's Asia Pacific Triennial, Centro Cultural La Moneda, Santiago, Chile (2019); Tejiendo identidades (Weaving Identities): Hou I-Ting Solo Exhibition, PHotoEspaña, Centro de Historias, Zaragoza, Spain (2019); Cold Chain: Hou I-Ting Solo Exhibition, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, Taiwan (2019); 9 th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia (2018); Citation From Craft — Taiwanese Contemporary Textile Art, 21 st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan (2017), and Sewing Field, TKG + Projects, Taipei, Taiwan (2015).
\n\nHer work is housed in the collections of the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taiwan; Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan; National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan; Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan; White Rabbit Gallery, Australia; and Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art, Australia.
\n\n\n\n
HSU Hui-ju
\n\nSometimes filmmaker,most often mother of two children. Her films often explore life and death. Using a quiet gaze to gain an insight on the absurdity of life on earth, she tries to re-examine the meaning of painful life experiences whether it is through the context of family or some specific field, and from a cold and distant tone, eventually project another kind of tenderness.
\n\n\n\n
JAO Chia-en
\n\nBorn in Taichung, Taiwan in 1976
\n\nNow lives and works in Taipei
\n\nChia-En Jao received his bachelor's degree in fine arts from the Taipei National University of the Arts (2000), before he graduated from the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-arts in Paris (2004). Jao studied at Goldsmiths, University of London, where he received his master's degree in fine arts (2007), and attended a residency program in Paris in 2007.
\n\nJao's project-based practice stretches across different mediums, including drawing, performance, site-specific installation, and multichannel video installation. His international experience informs his perspective on the particular conditions of Taiwan's political, economical, and social situation. His practice — deeply rooted in his local surroundings — has more recently delved into colonial histories and the cross-cultural tensions in the Asia Pacific region. His anthropological and collaborative approach has led him to work with civilian protestors, taxi drivers, and immigrant workers from Southeast Asian countries. For Jao, these personal encounters have generated intriguing and valuable interpretations of history that subtly subvert and question the established, official versions produced by the nation-state and media.
\n\nJao has exhibited at prominent international institutions, including Unfolding Acts: New Art From Taipei and Perth, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Perth, Australia (2019); Tales of Our Time, Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation Chinese Art Initiative, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, U.S. (2016); Parasite, Hong Kong, China (2016); Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, Germany (2015); National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan (2013); QAGOMA, Brisbane, Australia (2012); MOCA Shanghai, Shanghai, China (2012); Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, Taiwan (2012); Museo di Arte Contemporanea di Villa Croce, Genoa, Italy (2011); and Ludwig Museum, Budapest, Hungary (2010). The artist has also participated in notable exhibitions, including the 7th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (2012), Shanghai Biennale (2012), and Taipei Biennial (2012, 2010).
\n\n\n\n
LAU Kek-huat
\n\nMalaysian filmmaker based in Taiwan. His debut film Boluomi, was in competition Busan International Film Festival, New Currents section and Golden horse nominated for Best new director. The project won him the Tokyo Talent Award 2015, Best Script Award in 2013 Taiwan and selected for La Fabrique. Cinema du monde. His short film Nia door won Best Short Film Award, Sonje Award in Busan International film festival, selected for 38th Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival. Both his documentary Absent without leave and The Tree Remembers still face censorship challenge today in Malaysia. He is an alumnus of Golden Horse Academy and Berlinale & Tokyo Talents.
\n\n\n\n
Lana LOCKE
\n\nLana is an artist working across a range of media including installation, painting, sculpture, video and performance. She is interested in the idea of the 'feral' - between the wild and the civilized – and how it feeds into social, material and feminist concerns.
\n\n\n\n
LIN Han
\n\nGraduating from the Graduate School of Performing Arts, National Taiwan University of Arts, is an actress, independent director, and scriptwriter in Taiwan. She is known for her role in Double Vision(2002) and Summer's Tail(2007). She wrote the script for short film, Afterdark, from PTS (Public Television Service, Taiwan) Innovative Stories and played as a protagonist. She also wrote the script of TV series, Amour et Pâtisserie(2013). Blossom(2017) is her first debut as a short film director.Her directorial debut, Blossom was selected to numerous international film festivals.
\n\n\n\n
YU Cheng-ta
\n\nYU Cheng-Ta from Taiwan often involves verbal communication with the subjects and viewers in a playful manner to create the concept of "life theatre", that is, deliberately setting up real life situations as the shooting scenes. Yu Cheng-Ta earned both an undergraduate and a master’s degree in fine arts from the Taipei National University of the Arts. He was a recipient of the Taipei Arts Award in 2008 and the Beacon Prize at Art Fair Tokyo in 2012. Yu participated in the 6th Taipei Biennial and was featured in the Taiwan Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennale. In 2009, he participated in the Biennial Cuvée 08 at OK Center for Contemporary Art in Linz, Austria. In 2012, he took part in the 5th International Biennial of Media Art at Experimenta in Melbourne, Australia, and Le Festival Made in Asia in Toulouse, France. In 2013, Yu held a solo exhibition at the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, and took part in the Asian Art Biennial at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, as well as Queens International at Queens Museum in New York. In 2014, he held the solo exhibition "Practicing LIVE" at Taipei Fine Arts Museum and participated in the 10th Shanghai Biennial, the 2nd CAFA Biennial in Beijing, and Asian Art Week at the Asia Society Museum in New York. In 2015, he took part in the 56th Berlin International Film Festival Forum Expanded. In 2016, he exhibited in Gwangju City Museum of Art, and in Centre Pompidou. His film project "Tell Me What You Want (2015-2017)" presented in Centre Pompidou in Paris and Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen in 2018. In 2019, he participated Performa Biennial in New York and created the character "FAMEME". In 2020, he hold a solo exhibition at Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art in South Korea.
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