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The results of the November 2023 open call for Taiwanese artists or curators have finally been announced. Ting Chaong-Wen 丁昶文 will be in-resident at Delfina Foundation for twelve-weeks from April 2 to June 23.
Click here for more information: https://www.delfinafoundation.com/in-residence/chaong-wen-ting/
Artist’s Website: https://tingchaongwen.weebly.com/
Source: Delfina Foundation
In partnership with the Ministry of Culture, Taiwan, Delfina Foundation, dedicated to facilitating artistic exchange and developing creative practice through residencies, partnerships and public programming, is currently looking for a Taiwanese artist or curator for a 12-week residency in London which will take place from the 2nd of April to the 24th of June, 2024.
The application deadline is: Sunday, 10 December 2023, 23:59 GMT
For more information please visit the following website: https://www.delfinafoundation.com/open-calls/current/open-call-for-taiwanese-artists-and-curators-2024/
申請時間自即日起至臺北時間112年11月30日下午5時止，以電郵寄件時間為憑。本次將徵選3-4團隊，類型含括舞蹈、肢體劇場、馬戲、兒童劇、戲劇、音樂劇及音樂類等，歡迎各表演團體踴躍報名參與。
徵件公告 : https://reurl.cc/1Gp4KW
In a groundbreaking event, The University of Edinburgh held a ceremony on Friday, November 3rd, to return the remains of four indigenous Paiwan warriors to Taiwan, marking the nation's first international repatriation of ancestral remains. Attended by University Vice-Principal Gavin McLachlan, Council of Indigenous Peoples Deputy Minister Calivat Gadu, and other dignitaries, the ceremony signifies a significant step in cultural reconciliation.
Ambassador Kelly W. C. Hsieh, from the Taipei Representative Office in the UK, and Chang Chia-change, from the mission’s Edinburgh branch, witnessed the restitution, highlighting the diplomatic importance of the gesture. The event underscores the University's commitment to ethical practices and cultural sensitivity, contributing to a global movement advocating for the repatriation of cultural heritage.
For a deeper insight into this historic repatriation and its background, you can consult the following link: https://focustaiwan.tw/culture/202311030019
Press Release 1/11/2023
Wang Yeu-Kwn, the Artistic Director of Shimmering Production,' along with his collaborative dance piece Islands, Indonesian dancer Danang Pamungkas, and dramaturge Wang Shih-Wei, have been invited by the renowned British dance institution, The Place, to engage in a creative exchange in London. Islands is the second episode of Wang Yeu-Kwn’s “A Trilogy — Quest of Relationships” choreography project; inspired by his 2019 trip to Indonesia in search of a giant fish: in the search for self-identity. On October 20th, the team held a workshop at The Place where they shared the creative ideas as well as discussion of the questionnaire which was sent out prior to the workshop. Moreover, on October 24th they also shared a piece of their work at The Place to performing arts professionals.
In 2022, during the staged development version of the performance Islands at the Weiwuying National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts in Taiwan as part of the 'Taiwan Dance Platform,' artist Wang Yeu-Kwn caught the attention of Mr. Eddie Nixon, the Artistic Director of The Place. Subsequently, he invited his team to the UK for an artistic exchange and further development of the dance piece. Wang Yeu-Kwn expressed his happiness at having the opportunity to work purely and wholeheartedly with his creative partners at The Place's professional rehearsal space during the creative process of Islands. He also hopes to share the current stage of the creative concept with The Place and London's professionals, fostering discussions and igniting new collaborative opportunities through different perspectives.
This year, Dr Chen Pin-Chuan, the Head of the Cultural Division of the Taipei Representative Office in the UK, Ministry of Culture, collaborated with The Place to support Taiwanese artists in their overseas creative endeavours and was also invited to observe the proceedings. Dr Chen stated that this collaboration with The Place represents a new initiative for the Cultural Division in the UK. Over the past three years, Taiwan's performing arts scene has accumulated a significant creative energy, which needs an outlet due to the COVID-19-related travel restrictions. The aim is to provide Taiwanese artists with opportunities to engage in creative work abroad, drawing from the rich cultural and creative environment in London and the resources of professional institutions. Furthermore, they hope to capture the attention of local professionals to increase the chances of Taiwanese performing arts productions being invited for international tours in the future.
WANG Yeu-Kwn Choreographer / dancer / founder of Shimmering Production
Wang only started his career as a choreographer after leaving Cloud Gate 2, where he was a professional dancer from 2008 to 2015. As a choreographer, Wang takes interest in exploring the connections and disconnections between people, people and environments, and among cultures. Relationships, in other words, have become the inspirations for his works. His award winning and internationally toured dance piece, “Beings”, is the first episode of his choreography project “A Trilogy — Quest of Relationships”.
Wang was selected as part of the “2020 Young Star, New Vision" creation project of the National Culture and Arts Foundation, Taiwan. In 2021, he received triple awards at the 27th Yokohama Dance Collection in Japan, making him the first Taiwanese choreographer ever to make this achievement. With the support of the National Theater and Concert Hall, National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts Waiwuying, residency programs at The Place in London and Kinosaki International Arts Center, Wang has started creating “Islands” (working title), the second episode of the “A Trilogy — Quest of Relationships” project, which is set to premiere in fall 2024.
Danang Pamungkas Islands— Dancer
Dancer, choreographer and artistic director of Dan's Dance Studio Solo. Danang Pamungkas was a professional dancer at Cloud Gate 2 in Taiwan. After returning to Indonesia in 2011, he has continued his dance career and has actively studied traditional Javanese dance, using it as a basis for dissecting and exploring the realm of contemporary dance choreography.
He is a frequent artist at the Theater Arena Surakarta and Jakarta Salihara Theater in Indonesia. In addition, he has been invited to perform at international festivals and stages including the Indonesian Dance Festival, Salihara Festival and Salihara Festival in Indonesia, the Artquake in Autumn Festival in Taiwan, Welt Museum in Vienna, Austria, the National Museum in Singapore, and Boston Arts Center.
Aside from creating his own danceworks, his unique background and movements have also drawn attention from choreographers and dance companies for collaborations, such as Anikaya Dance Theater (USA), Su Wen-Chi (Taiwan), and Wang Yeu-Kwn (Taiwan). He was also invited by the Indonesian film director Garin Nugroho to choreograph for the movie “Satan Jawa”.
The Place, London’s creative powerhouse for dance development, has been leading the way in dance training, creation and performance for over 50 years. In a changing landscape, our vision for the future remains steadfast: We are powering imagination through dance, championing new ideas, embracing risks and creating a dance ecosystem unlike any other in the world, with optimal conditions for dance artists and enthusiasts to realise their full potential. The Place is home to London Contemporary Dance School, an extensive theatre and artist development programme, education projects, a range of classes and courses and a nationwide touring model. As a pioneering dance organization, we are committed to creating no-barriers access to exciting dance experiences and opportunities for everybody, offering a diverse and dynamic theatre programme for audiences, supporting artists and dance makers and giving young people access to the highest quality opportunities to touch their lives with dance. theplace.org.uk
Media contact: Assistant Director Lin Shin-Yi, Taipei Representative Office in the UK. Email: shinyi238@moc.gov.tw
Press Release 6/10/2023
The 8th edition of the renowned London East Asia Film Festival is back with this year’s rich and diverse programme comprising 48 titles, both contemporary and restored classics, including 12 International premieres and 25 UK premieres from South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Tibet, Philippines, and Macao. The Festival will take place from October 18th to October 29th, 2023, and it follows these main strands: Retrospective of Director Chung Ji-Young, LEAFF’s Official Selection, Competition, Stories of Women, Halloween Horror Special, Cherish the World, LGBTQIA+, and Classics Restored, all curated by Festival Director Hyejung Jeon, with a team of festival advisors and programmers based in East Asia and the UK.
This year, Taiwanese cinema has been highly regarded by the Festival, which decided to screen 7 films with entries in three of the main strands: Stories of Women, with Little Blue (Director Lee Yi-fang) and Untold Herstory (Director Zero Chou), Competition, with Coo-Coo 043 (Director Chan Ching-Lin), Day Off + Q&A (Director Fu Tien-yu), and GAGA (Director Laha Mebow), and Classics Restored, in partnership with Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute (TFAI), with Ah Fei (Director Wan Jen) and Dust of Angels (Director Hsiao-Ming Hsu).
Furthermore, this year, audiences will be able to immerse themselves in a special Taiwan night held at Odeon Luxe West End on October 21st. The night will begin with the screening of Day Off, released in 2023, which has already won the ‘Mulberry award for best screenplay’ at the Far East Film Festival in April. Afterward, the screening will be followed by an enriching live Q&A with Director Fu Tien-Yu at the cinema. Finally, audiences are invited to join the Taiwan-themed reception, where they will have the precious opportunity to learn more about Taiwan and its diverse culture. This annual special event highlights the growing interest of UK audiences in Taiwanese culture and the central position that the London East Asia Film Festival occupies in showcasing East Asian cultures and, in particular, its cinema.
LEAFF, founded in 2015, has had a long and fruitful collaboration with Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture since 2017 and, to this day, represents one of the unmissable yearly events in the UK capital, showcasing East Asian cultures and cinema together with enriching Q&A sessions by filmmakers, actors, critics, and academics, which provide the audiences with the opportunity of learning more about different countries’ socio-economic issues, intergenerational relationships, climate change, sense of identity and belonging, which usually do not get as much attention in the mainstream media. This year’s Festival is organized around the themes of justice and good fortune through the unique lens of different East Asian filmmakers.
Chen Pin-Chuan, the Director of the Cultural Division of the Taipei Representative Office in the UK, expressed that 2023 has been an extremely fruitful year in terms of collaborations with cultural organizations in the UK. The Taiwan Film Series at Manchester’s HOME, the Queer East Film Festival in London, and the year-long Taiwan film series at the National Audiovisual Institute (KAVI) in Finland, have all been well-received by local audiences and represent the increasing interest in Taiwanese cinema, often with outstanding inclusivity of themes and focuses such as the LGBTQAI+ cinema, film series showcasing exciting and often neglected niches, and the inclusion of Indigenous directors and films. Together with the other UK and Scandinavian institutions, the London East Asia Film Festival continues to be an essential platform for introducing more recent Taiwanese commercial films.
Programme and related events can be found on the following website: https://www.leaff.org.uk/2023-programme
Media contact: Assistant Director Lin Shin-Yi, Taipei Representative Office in the UK. Email: shinyi238@moc.gov.tw
Press Release 19/09/2023
In the autumn of 2023, the largest arts and cultural centre in Manchester, HOME, continued its year-round Taiwanese cinema series by launching a retrospective of Director Hou Hsiao-hsien's early works and conducting a special tour. This series of events was co-curated by Rachel Hayward, the head of Film Strategy at HOME, and Professor Andy Willis from the University of Salford's Film Department. Furthermore, in London, the independent The Garden Cinema actively curated and presented a special program on New Taiwanese Cinema in September for commercial screenings. This highlights the increasing visibility of Taiwanese cinema in the UK.
Manchester HOME launched the "The Early Films of Hou Hsiao-hsien" retrospective in September, featuring three films directed by or starring Director Hou Hsiao-hsien: "Cheerful Wind" (1981), "Taipei Story" (1985), and "Dust in the Wind" (1986). This series received enthusiastic responses from the audience, providing an opportunity to witness the master's creative work and cinematic journey. These three classic Taiwanese films will also be screened in cooperation with various institutions in four different cities in the UK, including Dundee and Glasgow in Scotland, Sheffield in the North of England, and Belfast in Northern Ireland, from mid-September to early October. This collaborative tour aims to make Taiwanese cinema accessible to audiences in more diverse regions of the UK.
2023 marks the second consecutive year of the fruitful collaboration between HOME and the Ministry of Culture, Taiwan. In addition to the on-going Hou Hsiao-hsien’s retrospective, the programme began in August with Director Hou Hsiao-hsien's film "Millennium Mambo." Next in line was the ‘Underworld Taiwan’ sub-season which presented the peculiar ‘’Taiwanese Black Cinema’’, a genre mixing a realist style with shocking subject matters. This sub-season included three titles: ‘Never Too Late to Repent’ (1979), ‘Woman Revenger’ (1982) both by director Tsai Yang-Ming, and ‘The Women’s Revenge’ (2020), a short film by visual artist Su Hui-Yu.
In September approaches, the focus returned to Director Hou Hsiao-hsien's early works for the special UK-wide tour. Before the year-long series screening programme concludes, HOME will also select and screen several more recent Taiwanese films. All screenings will include introductions by experts in the respective fields, allowing the audience to expand their knowledge of Taiwanese culture through film.
HOME was established in 2015 and it has since strived to become a landmark for not only Manchester’s arts and culture scene, but also for the whole country. It is now considered as the largest cultural centre, focusing on many different fields such as music, film, theatre, and also contemporary art. It is supported by Arts Council England, the National Lottery, and Manchester City Council, as well as many private enterprises and public funding bodies.
Another noteworthy cinema-focused programme not in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture, Taiwan, is being screened by the London-based independent The Garden Cinema which has been curating a commercial screening series titled "New Taiwanese Cinema" from early September to November. This program introduces several significant works, including those by directors such as Hou Hsiao-hsien ("Flowers of Shanghai," "The Time to Live and The Time to Die"), Edward Yang ("A Brighter Summer Day," "Yi Yi"), and Tsai Ming-liang ("Rebels of the Neon God," "Vive L'Amour").
Additionally, the cinema will present a double feature of King Hu's "Dragon Inn" (1967) and Tsai Ming-liang's "Goodbye, Dragon Inn" (2003) to pay tribute to both the content and the directors from the era of New Taiwanese Cinema.
The Garden Cinema has also invited important British scholars and experts in the field of film studies, including Professor Chris Berry, Professor Victor Fan, and Professor Christopher Brown from King's College London and the University of Sussex, as well as prominent film critic Tony Rayns and Wang Yi, the founder of the London East Asian Queer East Festival and a Taiwanese curator based in the UK. These experts will provide professional introductions and participate in post-screening discussions to enhance the audience's understanding of the films.
Chen Pin-Chuan, the director of the Cultural Division at the Taipei Representative Office in the UK, expressed that in recent years, the exposure of Taiwanese cinema in the UK has been on the rise, regardless of whether it is in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture, Taiwan. For instance, HOME has previously showcased Taiwanese films as individual screenings, and since 2022, the Ministry of Culture and HOME have initiated a year-long cooperation programme, gradually introducing Taiwanese language films, classic Taiwanese cinema, and more recent commercial films. This year, they have collaborated once again with a seasonal approach, providing local audiences with regular opportunities to watch Taiwanese films.
Furthermore, independent cinemas have taken the initiative to curate and screen Taiwanese films, reflecting the interest of local audiences in Taiwanese classic cinema content. These exchanges and collaborations contribute to a deeper and more favourable impression of Taiwanese culture in the hearts of British audiences.
Screening schedules and related events can be found on the following websites: https://homemcr.org/event/taiwan-film-at-home-2023/ https://www.thegardencinema.co.uk/season/new-taiwanese-cinema/
Media contact: Assistant Director Lin Shin-Yi, Taipei Representative Office in the UK. Email: shinyi238@moc.gov.tw
Press Release 10/07/2023
In order to encourage the development of artistic talents in Taiwan and enrich international exchanges, since 2020 the Ministry of Culture, Taiwan has been collaborating with the London-based art residency institution, Delfina Foundation, to carry out residency programs for Taiwanese artists and curators. This year, artist Lee Tzu-Tung stood out among over a hundred applicants through two rounds of professional selection by the Foundation's jury, and will embark on a residency in London before the summer.
As a curator and conceptual artist, Lee Tzu-Tung’s works combine anthropological research with political action, exploring how people establish identities related to politics, gender, and illness, thereby reclaiming autonomy. Lee employs participatory projects that invite the audience to become co-creators, challenging various authorities in contemporary society. The artist graduated from the Department of Agricultural Economics at the National Taiwan University and received full scholarships for an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MSc from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lee has exhibited in various countries, including MOCA Taipei and C-LAB (Taiwan), Cuchifritos Gallery, Stanford University, and Tom Robbinson Gallery (United States), Lisbon University (Portugal), and ArtScape (Canada).
The Delfina Foundation expressed that Taiwan has an abundance of outstanding artistic talent, and this year's applicants were highly enthusiastic, making the selection process very challenging. In the proposed project, Lee Tzu-Tung plans to write a screenplay during the residency, using satirical methods to reconsider Taiwan's most pressing political issues in response to the potential "confrontation" the country may face. As a political artist, Lee has previously engaged in economic activism projects and produced an experimental documentary exploring various sovereignty issues.
The Ministry of Culture, Taiwan stated that following the containment of the COVID-19 situation in Taiwan, they hope to utilize this residency program to allow the selected artists and curators to engage in dialogue with the contemporary art community through the Delfina Foundation and its extensive professional network in the United Kingdom and Europe. This opportunity aims to showcase their artistic capabilities in responding to global issues through creative endeavours.
Media contact: Lin Shinyi, Cultural Division of the Taipei Representative Office in the UK. Phone: (020) 78812676 Email: shinyi238@moc.gov.tw