Kamila Szejnoch：
I am an artist from Warsaw, Poland and have been invited for a 2-month residency at the Tsung-Yeh Artist Village, where I would be conducting a site-specific project related to the sugar industry. Originally, I was trained in sculpture background, but I no longer make them anymore. Mr. Button, my one and only sculpture work, was made in Oslo in 2006. Children from the kindergarten nearby really liked it.
My recent artworks has turned into the field of performance. Swing (2008) was made when the communist regime collapsed. I did a performance on the permanent sculpture that looks like a Polish solider. The sculpture was made in 1985 to commemorate Soviet Union’s occupation during World War II. I had intended to do a weeklong performance, with a swing placed on the statue. However, the police came and stopped the project, forcing the project to be conducted for only one afternoon. I have also conducted other performances that refer to historical, political sculptures like this one, but many of them have yet to be realized as well.
There is another one based on flag masts, titled Flagpole, which took place in 2010 on a public square in Poland. There are many important historical sculptures installed on the square, and my idea was to turn the straight flag masts into bent poles. The project was realized in an art festival with permission, so the police could not interfere with it. I took down all the original flag masts and replaced them with bent ones.
Kamila Szejnoch：
For What (2011) was a project that took place in a factory that used to make custards in Birmingham, UK. The factory has no longer been in operation and is now a post-industrial display park. You could see the municipal emblems of the city, which has the word, “Forward”, on it. I found it quite interesting. It echoed with the forward-moving image of industrialization. I was, however, surprised to see the word scribbled everywhere in the park, including walls and rubbish cans. I then decided to raise a question by changing the word “Forward” into “For what?” Because of the expertise required, I was unable to complete such a large-scale graffiti work by myself, so I collaborated with a graffiti artist who had originally created the emblems using the word, “Forward”. I also made small stickers and placed them on bulletin boards on the streets.
I have also collaborated with another artist for a piece that renovated a waiting room from a prison in Warsaw (Waiting Room, 2015). Families of the incarcerated usually had to wait in a waiting room before they could actually meet with the inmates. Sometimes it would take several hours, and the environment such as restrooms in the waiting rooms are usually quite subpar. I first held couple of courses and workshops with some female inmates, giving them some training on how to do renovation. I began by showing them some interior design magazines and talked to them about some possible designs. They then created some collages before they proceeded with the renovation. We also invited some professional interior designers to come and help with the project. The result of the renovation was quite impressive.
The followings are smaller-scale works. I built a small garden house for children in an art center on the outskirts of Warsaw (Collection, 2015). The small house was originally used as a warehouse. It was filled with trash, and the house was falling apart. My idea was to transform it into a mini vacation home for kids and to also utilize traditional woodwork that was unique to the region. Some of my friends helped with the project, and I also conducted workshops, inviting children to paint on the furniture and the walls on their own.
Kamila Szejnoch：
Nazar (2017) was a project that took place in a community in Denmark. Approximately ninety percent of the residents in this community originated from the Middle East. The eye-liked image is called “Nazar” (the evil eye), which is a well-known protective amulet in the Middle East. It is said to have the power to shield people from bad emotions or evil things. It is a popular souvenir. I recreated a local bus stop by turning it into the shape of Nazar. The concept was for the artwork to protect the local residents from discrimination. Some young people from Palestine also joined in the making of the work, and I also conducted workshops for local children.
Contact Mine (2017) was also a performance-based artwork, again related to a monumental sculpture. There were a lot of landmines left in Warsaw after the war, so bomb disposal technicians were very important for post-war reconstruction. This statue was made in 1975 during the communist era, and the image displayed a very communistic and closed-off aesthetic. However, installed by a river, it has become a tourist spot, which has caused a great paradox considering the intended symbolism of the sculpture. My concept was to construct a way for everyone to learn about this sculpture through a new approach. For example, the ball on it was originally used to represent a torpedo, but interestingly, children would interact with them in fascinating new ways. However, the police eventually showed up again. Moreover, the more challenging part was that I received some intense reaction from the local residents. These residents include people from various generations, and some of them have probably experienced the war and were traumatized by it.
Hsu Yuan-Ta (Moderator)：
Kamila has shifted the attributes of certain public spaces from the post-World War II historical trauma and memorials, leading it through economic, epochal, and democratic development. We could find out that she has transformed the spaces for people, reminding them of the history and the new awareness toward public space. Next, we would like to invite Liang Jen-Hung, a renowned artist in Taiwan, who has approached public spaces, to share his experiences on how to takes nature into consideration, as he opts to connect with the powerful force of nature in Taiwan with a “go with the flow” methodology.
[AL1] Liang Jen-Hung：
In fact, I have not been making art for a long time, and contemporary art was on the rise when I entered into the field. Through a process from observation to creation, I was able to reflect and think about how to move forward. When I turned forty, I started reevaluating the matter of art creation, and together with experiences I have accumulated in life coupled and my fascination toward physics, I then became quite interested in kinetic art. I had started by using mechanical kinetic energy to create movements and then gradually evolved into applying natural kinetic energy.
Some of my artworks were not made for specific public spaces. Instead, the eagerness and imagination often come before them, and the work would then walk into a public space afterwards. Satirically speaking, I do not usually have thoughts about the public-ness, which sometimes would develop in the middle of the creative process, and sometimes would only come across towards the end. I have made a work related to the Ciaotou Sugar Refinery. This particular sugar refinery was established more than a century ago, and in the district of Ciaotou, there is another historical heritage asset, called Black Bodhisattva Guanyin (Goddess of Compassion). When the director of the Cultural Affairs Bureau learned that the manager of the refinery was planning to tear it down, I was asked to utilize discarded objects from it to create an artwork that would bring the Black Bodhisattva Guanyin together with the feature of mechanical industrialization.
The artwork I made for the Southern Taiwan Science Park was an attempt of answering the question of how to bring back the ecological features since coastal ecosystem has been completely ruined by the industrial development in the park. Places where birds used to find foods or stand and rest have all been destroyed. Therefore, I made the artwork for the birds to rest on.
In the past few years, I have gradually developed a series, Waiting for Activation (2015). Although they were waiting for activation as the title suggested, people could react with them through intervention or engagement. The movements of the works were not activated by forces of nature but the results of human interaction. It is a series that I am still currently working on.
Hsu Yuan-Ta (Moderator)：
We have now seen how the artworks take place in public spaces, and how they view the spaces and encompass elements from history and regional features. Liang Jen-Hung focuses more on how to integrate nature and energy, and has created artworks that are not driven by electricity but nature. His works especially pay attention to how people perceive and comply with nature. Let’s invite Kamila to share some her thoughts on Liang Jen-Hung’s artworks now.
Kamila Szejnoch：
I think there is a fascinating paradoxical quality within Liang Jen-Hung’s artworks. They seem be intricately and scientifically calculated, but actually bring up certain indiscernible poetic quality. I am especially interested with the way his artworks move in the wind. The movements are very organic and light. It is what makes the works so unique and closely aligned with the needs nowadays of paying closer attention to the environment.
