Akibo (李明道) is an artist, designer and art director who first gained recognition for creating iconic album cover designs for famous Taiwanese pop musicians including Bobby Chen (陳昇), Wubai (伍佰), Lo Ta-yu (羅大佑) and A-mei (張惠妹). As an artist, Akibo is known for creating robotic characters with a distinctly original style and playful personalities that engage in narratives of courage, adventure, friendship and love. These characters were initially created for his two sons as fictional companions, which are meant to inspire in them positive values. The ongoing project embodies the warmth of his fatherly love. In celebration of this year’s Children’s day, Hsinchu City Art Gallery (新竹市美術館) is hosting Akibo’s solo exhibition, Welcome Robots (機器人家族), which showcases 12 large-scale robotic sculptures, over 100 action figures and a selection of 3D models. The gallery space is equipped with augmented reality. There are also 30 original robotic designs on display, entries chosen from a children’s design competition held in February by the gallery.
■ Hsinchu City Art Gallery (新竹市美術館), 116, Jhongyang Rd, Hsinchu City (新竹市中央路116號), tel: (03) 531-9756. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9am to 5pm
■ Until May 5
Photo Courtesy of Taipei Artist Village
The annual Treasure Hill Light Festival will open tomorrow with an extensive program of events, including stand-up comedy, art actions, performances, talks, outdoor film screenings and a flea market. The film program is co-organized by Giloo, an online documentary streaming platform that showcases a broad range of non-fiction film. From noon to evening, Giloo will screen 4 films from the US, China and Japan in an abandoned air raid shelter. For full details, visit: www.artistvillage.org. The month-long festival A Land of Happiness (野景) is spread throughout the Treasure Hill Artist Village compound, and features 14 artworks that explore the relationship between modern life and nature. Legacy Lab International (人嶼) is a Taipei-based, multi-disciplinary studio that works between the boundaries of science and contemporary art. Nirvana (涅槃) demonstrates the group’s ongoing research and experimentation with various physical properties of media and materials. Olga Diego is a Spanish-born artist who creates large industrial objects and performances that reflect on the process of production. Her installation Jardin Automata is composed of a labyrinth of gigantic, plastic blow-up dolls powered with kinetic features. Inspired by the 15th century masterpiece Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch, the work is a feast of visual excitement.
■ Treasure Hill Artist Village (寶藏巖國際藝術村), 2, Alley 14, Lane 230, Tingzhou Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市汀州路三段230巷14弄2號), tel: (02) 2364-5313. Opens Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 6pm
■ Tomorrow until May 5
Photo Courtesy of Treasure Hill Artist Village
Listening Machine (聆聽的機器) is a two-person exhibition by Taipei-based artists Chi Po-hao (紀柏豪) and Wang Chung-kun (王仲堃). Last year, both Wang and Chi participated in artist residency programs abroad supported by the Taipei Artist Village; this exhibition is a culmination of their respective experiences through works that engage with sound and technology. Chi’s practice involves creating live electronic, electroacoustic compositions and installations inspired by observations of everyday life and living environments. He is particularly interested in designing music systems that allow him to create compositions that operate beyond the confines of traditional music making. Song of Distances (距離之歌) is an interactive project that encourages the participation of visitors to contribute to an on-site interactive Web page. The work examines broadband, wireless networks and mobile communications and how these networks can be used to generate art. Wang’s practice, on the other hand, focuses on creating mechanical sound instruments, interactive installations and cross-disciplinary performances. His recent project explores the potential of randomness and spontaneity in sound installation. Sound of Wind (風聽) is a kinetic sculpture inspired by sound in relation to air flow. The movement of visitors in the gallery space affect the work through subtle changes.
■ Barry Room, Taipei Artist Village (台北國際藝術村百里廳), 7 Beiping E Rd, Taipei City (台北市北平東路7號), tel: (02) 3393-7377. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 9pm
■ Until April 23
Photo Courtesy of Hsinchu City Art Gallery
National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art presents Immortal On Screen (螢燈不滅), a group exhibition that explores our daily engagement with cyber space. “The first thing that many of us do when we wake up in the morning is to pick up our phones to switch off the alarm, and then we begin the day by browsing through Facebook and Instagram,” writes the curator Tseng Yu-chuan (曾鈺涓). She refers to activities online as a virtual life that is “concealed behind the screen … where emotions are masked and life is strategically considered, edited and altered.” In this show, ideas pertaining to the self-image, voyeuristic existence and immortality are presented through the perspectives of eight artists from Taiwan, the US and China. Chinese artist Ye Funa’s (葉甫納) Peep Stream is an ongoing live performance in collaboration with fellow artist Beio (北鷗). According to the artist, the project aims to blur the line between mass culture and contemporary art. Los Angeles-based artist Amalia Ulman’s Excellences & Perfections is a five-month scripted performance staged via Instagram and Facebook that responds to online makeover culture.
■ National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (國立台灣美術館), 2, Wuquan W Rd Sec 1, Taichung City (台中市五權西路一段2號), tel: (04) 2373-3552. Open Tuesdays to Fridays from 9am to 5pm, Saturdays and Sundays from 9am to 6pm.
■ Until June 9
Organized by the Department of Architecture of Tunghai University (東海大學建築系), Bauhaus 100 and the World It Enables (包浩斯百年與她所啟發的世界) is a retrospective of the radical design works of the influential German design school that operated between 1919 and 1933. Founded by German architect Walter Gropius, the school promoted excellence in both arts and craftsmanship while directing the school’s program towards contributions in mass manufacture design. The school’s unique approach to education offered a combination of workshops and art theory courses that was revolutionary for its time. In celebration of Bauhaus’s 100th anniversary, the exhibition commemorates the school’s pioneering ideas and unique styles that continue to inspire artists and designers to this day. According to the show’s press release, the innovative spirit of Bauhaus is a great influence on the Department of Architecture of Tunghai University. The department’s founding father, Chen Chi-kwan (陳其寬), once worked under the Gropius before returning to Taiwan to participate in the design of Tunghai University’s campus. The show includes a detailed model of the University’s Architecture building as well as a 3D rendition of the Bauhaus building in Dessau, Germany, created by the architecture students of Tunghai.
■ U-mkt (新富町文化市場), 70, Sanshui St, Wanhua Dist, Taipei City (台北市萬華區三水街70號), tel: (02) 2308-1092. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6pm
■ Until May 12
From an anonymous office in a New Delhi mall, matrimonial detective Bhavna Paliwal runs the rule over prospective husbands and wives — a booming industry in India, where younger generations are increasingly choosing love matches over arranged marriage. The tradition of partners being carefully selected by the two families remains hugely popular, but in a country where social customs are changing rapidly, more and more couples are making their own matches. So for some families, the first step when young lovers want to get married is not to call a priest or party planner but a sleuth like Paliwal with high-tech spy
The latest military exercises conducted by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) last week did not follow the standard Chinese Communist Party (CCP) formula. The US and Taiwan also had different explanations for the war games. Previously the CCP would plan out their large-scale military exercises and wait for an opportunity to dupe the gullible into pinning the blame on someone else for “provoking” Beijing, the most famous being former house speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August 2022. Those military exercises could not possibly have been organized in the short lead time that it was known she was coming.
With raging waters moving as fast as 3 meters per second, it’s said that the Roaring Gate Channel (吼門水道) evokes the sound of a thousand troop-bound horses galloping. Situated between Penghu’s Xiyu (西嶼) and Baisha (白沙) islands, early inhabitants ranked the channel as the second most perilous waterway in the archipelago; the top was the seas around the shoals to the far north. The Roaring Gate also concealed sunken reefs, and was especially nasty when the northeasterly winds blew during the autumn and winter months. Ships heading to the archipelago’s main settlement of Magong (馬公) had to go around the west side
When Portugal returned its colony Macao to China in 1999, coffee shop owner Daniel Chao was a first grader living in a different world. Since then his sleepy hometown has transformed into a bustling gaming hub lined with glittering casinos. Its once quiet streets are now jammed with tourist buses. But the growing wealth of the city dubbed the “Las Vegas of the East” has not brought qualities of sustainable development such as economic diversity and high civic participation. “What was once a relaxed, free place in my childhood has become a place that is crowded and highly commercialized,” said Chao. Macao yesterday
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