The room glows vibrant pink, the floor flooded with hundreds of tiny pink marbles. As I approach the two chairs and a plush baroque sofa of matching fuchsia, what at first appears to be a scene of domestic bliss reveals itself to be anything but as gnarled metal nails and sharp spikes protrude from the cushions. An eerie cutout of a woman recoils into the armrest.
This mixed-media installation captures generations of female anguish in Yun Suknam’s native South Korea, reflecting her observations and lived experience of the subjugated and serviceable housewife. The marbles are the mother’s sweat and tears, while the chairs are a symbol of the passivity of woman in the home.
It’s a poignant introduction to Enclave: An Autobiography (飛地：一部自傳的誕生), the latest exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum. Each exhibit explores the many facets of the female experience, an audiovisual journey into women’s inner lives, darkest thoughts and wildest dreams. Running until Dec. 15, it showcases 28 female artists in a 112-piece collection spanning seven decades and comprised of paintings, sketches, videos and a commissioned biographical novel of their lives.
Photo: Hollie Younger
From a 1969 artistic interpretation of the book Little Women to the modern-day Taiwanese millennial questioning the construct of marriage, the works employ a myriad of themes, including labor division, gender equality and self-identity.
“The Enclave reveals how female artists have carved out space for creativity amid multiple identities and responsibilities,” says curator Kat Siao (蕭琳蓁).
The exhibit unfolds in three sections. Window — Quotidian Realities explores the boundary between the home and the outside world, best exemplified by Yun’s complex and unsettling installation.
Photo: Hollie Younger
Time Passes — Awareness in Changes narrates women’s self-reflections throughout life’s joys and vicissitudes. For example, Chen Hui-chiao’s (陳慧嶠) Between Stops (似停非停, 1997) features hundreds of white feathers that are tightly compressed into a glass case to symbolize her feelings of confinement and limitation.
The Lighthouse — Symbol and Pursuit turns outward, exploring politics, the environment, social structures and collective trauma. As the most dynamic and interactive segment, it invites viewers to immerse themselves in visual storytelling. Crashing waves are projected onto a wall in one part of the room, while in another visitors sit on bean bags with headphones beneath a staircase, watching a short film cast up onto the slanted wall.
This section features Huang Hai-hsin’s (黃海欣) Marriage Crisis (婚姻危機, 2012), which depicts a bride and groom, their wedding cake ablaze while guests choke on the fumes at the couple’s feet. The oil painting explores marriage as both a societal expectation and personal choice, reflecting the dilemmas faced by young Taiwanese women.
Photo: Hollie Younger
Huang says seeing her work brings up “the intense frustration and self-doubt I felt over a decade ago. Yet, amidst the turmoil, I also see a strength and resilience that I didn’t fully appreciate at the time.”
‘THE TREASURE BOX’
Photo: Hollie Younger
Siao commissioned artist Kuo Yu-ping (郭俞平) to write a short novel, The Treasure Box (珍藏盒), the only new work contained within the exhibition. Visitors can read the novella on seating chairs and cushions within an otherwise unused staircase suspended above the main exhibition floor, which it has dubbed The Study Project.
“While preparing the exhibition, we were deeply moved by the artists’ life experiences. We aimed not only to showcase their work but to convey this sense of connection,” she says.
Mirroring the exhibition experience, Kuo says that, in writing the novel, she had to travel back in time, to Taiwan under Japanese colonial rule and the post-war period, from Paris in the wake of World War II to rural Switzerland.
Photo: Hollie Younger
The novella drills to the core of this exhibition’s message: “how, within the limitations of their particular eras, did these women pursued dreams of self-fulfillment,” Kuo says.
Reading the program — and, for Chinese readers, the novel — brings more clarity and understanding to the otherwise unexplained or, in my opinion, under-explained works. Many are more abstract or surrealist, with their inspiration or stories easily passed by. Then again, perhaps that is the point, as it is perfectly emblematic of a woman’s inner world — complex, misunderstood and too often overlooked.
“It’s a testament to the enduring nature of human expression and the timeless quality of great art,” Huang says.
Photo: Hollie Younger
While global attention is finally being focused on the People’s Republic of China (PRC) gray zone aggression against Philippine territory in the South China Sea, at the other end of the PRC’s infamous 9 dash line map, PRC vessels are conducting an identical campaign against Indonesia, most importantly in the Natuna Islands. The Natunas fall into a gray area: do the dashes at the end of the PRC “cow’s tongue” map include the islands? It’s not clear. Less well known is that they also fall into another gray area. Indonesia’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) claim and continental shelf claim are not
Nov. 4 to Nov. 10 Apollo magazine (文星) vowed that it wouldn’t play by the rules in its first issue — a bold statement to make in 1957, when anyone could be jailed for saying the wrong thing. However, the introduction to the inaugural Nov. 5 issue also defined the magazine as a “lifestyle, literature and art” publication, and the contents were relatively tame for the first four years, writes Tao Heng-sheng (陶恒生) in “The Apollo magazine that wouldn’t play by the rules” (不按牌理出牌的文星雜誌). In 1961, the magazine changed its mission to “thought, lifestyle and art” and adopted a more critical tone with
“Designed to be deleted” is the tagline of one of the UK’s most popular dating apps. Hinge promises that it is “the dating app for people who want to get off dating apps” — the place to find lasting love. But critics say modern dating is in crisis. They claim that dating apps, which have been downloaded hundreds of millions of times worldwide, are “exploitative” and are designed not to be deleted but to be addictive, to retain users in order to create revenue. An Observer investigation has found that dating apps are increasingly pushing users to buy extras that have been
Hourglass-shaped sex toys casually glide along a conveyor belt through an airy new store in Tokyo, the latest attempt by Japanese manufacturer Tenga to sell adult products without the shame that is often attached. At first glance it’s not even obvious that the sleek, colorful products on display are Japan’s favorite sex toys for men, but the store has drawn a stream of couples and tourists since opening this year. “Its openness surprised me,” said customer Masafumi Kawasaki, 45, “and made me a bit embarrassed that I’d had a ‘naughty’ image” of the company. I might have thought this was some kind
RSS