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- Artist-in-Residence Program_ Global Imprisonment, Local Exile Workshop
Artist-in-Residence Program_ Global Imprisonment, Local Exile Workshop
The 16th NCCU Artist-in-Residence Program
Art on the Periphery, and the Periphery of Art -- Chen Chieh-jen’s residence at NCCU
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Before we begin to talk about aesthetic practices, perhaps we should first try to grapple with the unavoidable issue of Taiwanese modernity. In mainstream Taiwanese historical discourse, when we talk about social transformations in Taiwan, we usually start with and focus on the time around the end of Martial Law in the late 1980s, known as the “Democratization Movements.” But what this mainstream discourse does not comment upon is that from the 1980s until today have also been characterized by an extreme spread of privatization across the globe known as “neoliberalism” (best seen in the economic policies under Margaret Thatcher in England and Ronald Reagan in the United States). After this, the Taiwanese government, political parties, capitalists, and media all seem to have secretly agreed upon calling praising “Labor Flexibility” policies as “reform.” They argued that by replacing “traditional employment” that is long term or guaranteed for life, with part time, temporary, independently contracted, and other “non-traditional employment positions,” Taiwan’s economy would grow and our country would finally be able to compete in the global marketplace again. However, over the past twenty years few of these “traditional employment” positions remain after years of company shut downs and industry outsourcing, and young people find few options after graduation. Their only choices are often to become short term, part time, or independently contracted workers who no longer become a burden for employers who otherwise would pay for their insurance or severance package. We might call these young people “locally exiled” in their alienation. Meanwhile, the myth of “democratization” that the bourgeoisie so highly praise has a monopoly on all types of media, and they continue to promise “reform” to the people. If art primarily concerns the expression of individual perception, then before we discuss “aesthetics,” we should first ask the following questions: What sort of system has deprived us of taking part in the “making” of perception and the enjoyment of leisure? What sort of rhetorical strategy is it that incessantly teaches us that “freedom” and “deprivation” are the same thing? Why is it that the anxious feeling of being “locally exiled” is so ineffable? The answer may not be so far away—it is probably not in the speeches and lectures of “experts” or in jargon-filled economic studies, but within ourselves, if we are willing to face it and ask ourselves honestly. Why is it that this highly personal “locally exile,” and “deprivation” has become so habitually rationalized to that point that it has even permeated our self-demeaning personal and collective subconscious? This workshop does not directly explore what it means to make “newer” or more “experimental” aesthetic forms. Instead, it focuses on demystifying the myth of the “democratization movement.” In other words, it is only through demystifying the ruling power’s discourse that we can finally begin to express that anxious feeling of being “locally exiled.” This expression may be extremely simple, or fragmented and broken, but it is only through these sorts of truly “equal” expression that we can create more reasonable foundation for society and a new way of living.(Written by Chen Chieh-jen) |
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 Course Schedule and Content
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