Insightful talk with several contemporary artists

Thanks to Sophie, we had the chance to meet up with several distinctive contemporary artists and some curators from the museum.

Seeing their works and knowing their interpretation of several issues change my mindset of what role is art playing in the society.

Art is a crystal refined by artist, clear and pure, without carrying anything. when audience looked through it, it should be able to tap their imagination(Yuan Guangming,2015).

In 24/7 exhibition, Michael used the the logo colour of convenient shop in Taiwan to decorate the wall. The convenient shops such as 7-11, Family Mart are everywhere and opened everyday for 24 hours and more functions are added in recently. People just used to their existence and gradually it become a meeting spot, a place where people do their work in and slowly fostering connection between people. Being in 24/7 exhibition, under the soft light and resting on the cozy tatami mats, the environment has slowed down our pace, bringing us back to our daily life, and think about something that we always take for granted. He also mentioned that some people like to work in coffee shops instead of being at home because coffee shops may provide better environment for them, maybe for them is a good place to escape from home.

After chatting with Charwei, we got to know about more her works and her story behind. Her documentary “Songs of Chuchepati Camp” exposed the living condition of victims after Kathmandu earthquake. Similarly “Hear her singing” also used songs to be the media of storytelling, strengthened the power to rise the awareness of the issue.

Rahic.Talif’s art works are compelling. He picked up plastic along the sea and repurposed them to create artworks and rise the awareness of the environment. During the process he was trying to explore his relationship with the sea and integrated his aboriginal culture into the artworks. What I was surprised about is his attitude towards being an aboriginal artists. He see unfairness between aboriginal people and the public and he wants to change this situation. Government has granted some privileges to the aboriginals but at the end is a kind of separation from the public; Government encourage aboriginal culture or art through giving out money So some of them created for profits but not create out of their original thoughts. However, it is not uncommon to see, we might ignore it and gradually consider that is how the way should go because it is not impacting directly on us. But it may have an enormous impact on a group of aboriginal people.

I really appreciated the art works that have stories behind it, that are beyond personal experience, that are really trying to reveal some truth that we don’t know. When combining with artists own interpretation and their unique approaches to express it, plus audience would have different views towards the same artworks, art can be really powerful.