Artist-in-Residence Program_Opening Ceremony

 The 16^th NCCU Artist-in-Residence Program

Art on the Periphery, and the Periphery of Art -- Chen Chieh-jen’s residence at NCCU

Artist-in-Residence Program Opening Activity Series

Date & Time: 16/05/2016 17:30-18:00

Venue: Art Gallery, NCCU Art & Culture Center

For those interested in participating in the opening ceremony, please apply on the university website after April 25^th.

Opening Ceremony Lectures

From Fields of Perception to Ineffable Images

Date & Time: 16/05/2016 19:00-21:00

Venue: Audiovisual Theater, NCCU Art & Culture Center

Speakers: Chen Chieh-jen (Artist) & Kuo Li-hsin (Associate Professor of Department of Radio & Television, NCCU)

Work in the arts is different from fields like sociology or anthropology. Artists have to learn how to experience the world using their senses, observation, and thought, and then translate these subjective experiences into a perceptual or artistic form. Artists have to use a language of non-explaining to express these subtle ideas. The artist Chen Chieh-jen and curator Kuo Li-hsin will be sharing their experience working through the artistic process, so that audiences might understand the concepts behind their artistic creation. The artists will share specifically how wide reading, contemplation, and social observation contribute to their creation of art.

Documentary screening

Date & Time: 17/05/2016 19:00-20:10

Venue: Audiovisual Theater, NCCU Art & Culture Center

The Face of Culture: Chen Chieh-jen

Producer：Qiu Xianzhong│2009│26 min│Taiwan│P│Chinese subtitles

Visual artist Chen Chieh-jen has made art continually for the past decade. His works focus on history, globalization, and marginalized groups, and are a reflection on his own life and the life of his country. From work on digital images in his early years to work on film in the present, Chen’s works also exhibit a deep curiosity for the forms themselves in which the works are presented. His work has been said to have universal value, and his creations always begin with a recollection of the past. Chen believes that to call upon the past is not just to remember events gone by, but to explore possibilities for the future. For many years Chen has been involved in issues with marginalized ethnic groups, and his works aim not only to show how these groups survive, but also to understand these groups’ relation to history, the context in which they survive, social factors, and modernization, through diverse uses of imagery and narration. Chen Chieh-jen believes that contemporary Taiwanese artists ought to be brave in facing our current era and should propose possibilities for change. Through this film, we invite audience members to join us in further understanding this fascinating artist. (Special thanks to the Taiwan National Foundation of the Arts and Taiwan Public Television Service for providing the film).

Art Duet：Voices of Two Generations

Tsao Wen-chieh│2015│50min│Taiwan│G│Chinese subtitles

Through the conversations between artists of different generations, Art Duet: Voices of Two Generations shows how artists face the times they live in, and how they create their works in their own languages. Moreover, artists of different generations have different definitions and methods of passing down art traditions. As a result, we are fortunate to see the fruit of their unique creation. 

Visual Arts

Chang Chao-Tang / Lee Wei-I   Chen Chieh-jen / Kao Jun-honn

Lee Wei-i, the founder of the Voices of Photography, has great sensitivity and passion for exploring photography. Lee is almost forty years younger than the veteran photographer Chang Chao-tang. Voices of Photography published a special issued on Chang Chao-tang in 2013, and it was voted by Oitzarisme as one of the “fifty magazines to buy before you die”. With his understanding of Chang, Lee knows how to present Chang’s tremendously rich creativity and thinking in the best light. 

Visual artist Kao Jun-honn’s works not only reflect history but his personal roots. His Ruin Image Crystal Project stems from the difficulties he faces and his encounter with the ruins; the underwear business which Kao’s mother is in has witnessed the decline of the traditional industries triggered by the economic liberalism. Veteran artist Chen Chieh-jen believes that personal experiences are no less important than social issues. To connect personal memories with the collective experience and the meaning of life is a crucial process of re-discovering one’s self as well as history. (Special thanks to the Taiwan Public Television Service for providing the film).