Taiwan-UK contemporary performance exchange in Pier-2 Art Center
Artists Home Swap, a Taiwan-UK exchange program in performance art, was organized in Kaohsiung for the first time! Thanks to professor I-Lien Ho of the Department of Theatre Arts, National Sun Yat-sen University, students and the public could explore the function of artist residency for cultural mobility by joining lectures, workshops and performances.
This year Artists Home Swap invited British live artists – Bettina Fung and Sam Reynolds, together with Howl Yuan, the curator of Artists Home Swap, Siao-Chi Chen and other Acid House members for a one-month residency. At the end of the residency, they travelled down to Kaohsiung to have the opportunity to exchange ideas and interact in Pier-2 Art Center.
This day-long event kicked off with a lecture – “Taiwan-UK live art exchange: study and practice”. This lecture let the audience gain a basic understanding of live art scene in Taiwan and the UK, alongside with the concept of Artists Home Swap 2019 and the participating artists. The leading theme of Artists Home Swap 2019 was “Dwelling, Mobility, Everyday Practices”, and it aimed to explore cultural mobility in microscale on an everyday basis.
In the afternoon, students and audience could join a workshop on “Cultural Mobility: Cabaret and performance drawing”. This workshop was organized by Bettina Fung and Sam Reynolds. Bettina Fung’s practice involves two-dimensional, visual, performative drawing, which draws attention to marking, archiving, the relation between time and space. Sam Reynolds is an international award-winning live artist. Using humour, pop culture, physical comedy, striptease, and the queer performance tradition of lip-syncing, he creates accessible and theatrical social commentary exploring themes such as race, queerness, identity, and vulnerability. By sharing and exercising artists’ practices, 25 participating students could understand Sam and Bettina’s artworks, practices, cultural contexts and creative methods, which inspired their performance perception. Students gave positive and passionate feedback: “inspiring”, “eye-opening”, “made me understand artists’ perception of Taiwan and explore their background and creative context”.
In the evening, the performance "Inhabitation, Migration, and Daily Work" was held to showcase Sam and Bettina’s developed practice during Artists Home Swap. Sam kicked off with his cabaret performance; his fierce and fabulous style immediately sizzled the audience. This event took place on October 27th, a day after Taipei Pride, which energy and spirit Sam successfully brought to Kaohsiung. Bettina shared her experience with the audience unfolding the scroll on which she made rubbings of objects she went past in Taipei while playing the sounds of the street she recorded. The audience was very intrigued, picked up the scroll and read it together. During the Q&A session, Professor I-Lien said that both of their performances were full of versatility, made the audience rethink what performance is for and how to speak to the audience to challenge their idea of the purpose of performance. A member of the audience also said that performing art is not just theatre; performing art can also bring us all kinds of imaginations and inspire the way we see things.
Besides many students of Theatre Arts joining the event, there were also students from various other departments such as Foreign Languages, Business Management, Oceanography, Applied Mathematics and more. Most of them said that they have not seen works of the two British artists, but were amazed with them. Through the event activities, students could understand emerging art forms such as queer performance and different formats of art like performance drawing and their development and how they interact with the society we live in. This event aims to spark students' thinking and broaden their perspective, which is also an opportunity to expand international exchange and broaden students’ horizons.
This year Artists Home Swap invited British live artists – Bettina Fung and Sam Reynolds, together with Howl Yuan, the curator of Artists Home Swap, Siao-Chi Chen and other Acid House members for a one-month residency. At the end of the residency, they travelled down to Kaohsiung to have the opportunity to exchange ideas and interact in Pier-2 Art Center.
This day-long event kicked off with a lecture – “Taiwan-UK live art exchange: study and practice”. This lecture let the audience gain a basic understanding of live art scene in Taiwan and the UK, alongside with the concept of Artists Home Swap 2019 and the participating artists. The leading theme of Artists Home Swap 2019 was “Dwelling, Mobility, Everyday Practices”, and it aimed to explore cultural mobility in microscale on an everyday basis.
In the afternoon, students and audience could join a workshop on “Cultural Mobility: Cabaret and performance drawing”. This workshop was organized by Bettina Fung and Sam Reynolds. Bettina Fung’s practice involves two-dimensional, visual, performative drawing, which draws attention to marking, archiving, the relation between time and space. Sam Reynolds is an international award-winning live artist. Using humour, pop culture, physical comedy, striptease, and the queer performance tradition of lip-syncing, he creates accessible and theatrical social commentary exploring themes such as race, queerness, identity, and vulnerability. By sharing and exercising artists’ practices, 25 participating students could understand Sam and Bettina’s artworks, practices, cultural contexts and creative methods, which inspired their performance perception. Students gave positive and passionate feedback: “inspiring”, “eye-opening”, “made me understand artists’ perception of Taiwan and explore their background and creative context”.
In the evening, the performance "Inhabitation, Migration, and Daily Work" was held to showcase Sam and Bettina’s developed practice during Artists Home Swap. Sam kicked off with his cabaret performance; his fierce and fabulous style immediately sizzled the audience. This event took place on October 27th, a day after Taipei Pride, which energy and spirit Sam successfully brought to Kaohsiung. Bettina shared her experience with the audience unfolding the scroll on which she made rubbings of objects she went past in Taipei while playing the sounds of the street she recorded. The audience was very intrigued, picked up the scroll and read it together. During the Q&A session, Professor I-Lien said that both of their performances were full of versatility, made the audience rethink what performance is for and how to speak to the audience to challenge their idea of the purpose of performance. A member of the audience also said that performing art is not just theatre; performing art can also bring us all kinds of imaginations and inspire the way we see things.
Besides many students of Theatre Arts joining the event, there were also students from various other departments such as Foreign Languages, Business Management, Oceanography, Applied Mathematics and more. Most of them said that they have not seen works of the two British artists, but were amazed with them. Through the event activities, students could understand emerging art forms such as queer performance and different formats of art like performance drawing and their development and how they interact with the society we live in. This event aims to spark students' thinking and broaden their perspective, which is also an opportunity to expand international exchange and broaden students’ horizons.
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