First Half of 2020
Since 2018, “Tainan Local Visit Tours” series have been held in Tainan’s diverse cultural landscapes and historic sites. Following the direction that led us out of town in the end of 2019, this year we expect to take one step further and reflect on the operation and the exclusionary mechanism of urban capital accumulation. When it comes to Tainan’s attractions, many people would think of Yan Jhen-Fa’s hand-painted posters at Chuan Mei Theater. With his ongoing research, Wan Zhen-Kai unveils the history behind those cinema billboards. Holding these series as a symbolic gesture, we hope to horizontally face what is excluded from “Tainan” as the other by the city-brand building, and vertically rediscover the historical sites that have been co-opted by the city’s tourism marketing. In the former, we take a look at two reputable cases of forced evictions in Tainan: the city’s ongoing push to move the railway tracks underground and its future plan to move Nanshan Cemetery. Organizations concerned and members of the self-help association, Zhang Ming-Shan and Wu Ming-Xian, lead us to re-ask a question: What kind of beautiful impression is exclusively allowed to remain in this ancient city that is known for its historical textures and memories? As for the latter, we invite Lin Chuan-Kai to talk about the moving and the rise and fall of Tainan’s underground organizations and activities in the early post-war period. We have been inspired by the concepts – “history localized at a township level” and “welcoming the spirits back to the hometown” – that have been emphasized a lot by Lin Chuan-Kai in recent years. We hope that ASA Salon could work as a mediator; and that through the connection of the communities and the participation and feedbacks of the local residents, historical files, the cemetery and all the exiled spirits in contemporary society can really be welcomed back to their hometown Tainan.
As an art space located in the south, we’ve also followed the southern art community and kept putting the decentralized reflexivity into practice by pushing the ASA Salon’s focuses from Tainan to “the south.” In the first half year, Yang Jia-Xuan looks back in history and introduces the blooming art media industry in Kaohsiung back in the 1990s, exploring the diverse and restless southern characteristics and the spiritual geography contrasting past and present. Starting with his curatorial practices in Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, including South as a Place of Gathering now on display, Fang Yan-Xiang debates the contradictions and dynamics between the institutions and their characteristic opposition as the south. On the other hand, Xu Jia-Feng, who acquired visual impairment in later life, shares his physical experiences of getting access to visual arts. Through the process of searching and taking actions, he illustrates the possibly new “state of mind” in the future.
Finally, the “Special Topics in Multidisciplinary Art” series keep on inviting lecturers of different fields. With their own professions such as history, sociology, philosophy, psychoanalysis, medicine and cultural skills, they respectively respond to the varied changes of method and interdisciplinary practices in contemporary art. Continuing his first lecture topic, Lin Chuan-Kai takes as an example the project that he has been involved in for recent years, and analyzes the difficulty of translating history into creative works under the “archive fever.” Yang Wan-I starts from the difference between the subject of the statement in Psychoanalysis and the knowing subject in philosophy. And then she gives feedbacks and re-explains the motto of “Know yourself,” which is highly emphasized and continuously fortified in contemporary art education. Continuing her discussion on visual and tactile perceptions in ASA Salon last year, Li Li-Jun brings about perspectives of cross-cultural comparison, and figures out how the differences in body images between Chinese and Western medical science produce totally different physical knowledge. Nowadays when the world suffers from plague and the images of viruses are clearly illustrated thanks to technology, Li Li-Jun leads us to question the relationship between images and the body.
Courses
Tainan Local Tours
Nanshan Cemetery: 400 Years Between the Living and the Dead
Behind the Billboards: Chuan Mei Theater’s 70th Anniversary
After the Railways Are Moved: Underground Railway and Vanished Cultural Landscapes
Sad Trees: Life and Death of Tainan’s Youth
Special Topics in the South
Southern Curatorial Practices in Institutions and Art Museums
Productivity of Art Media in the 1990s: A Case Study of Kaohsiung
A Disguised Perspective in the Unseen
Special Topics in Multidisciplinary Art
Making a Body: Body Images in Chinese and Western Medical Science
The Paradox in “Know Yourself”: The Subject of the Statement in Psychoanalysis and the Knowing Subject in Philosophy
White Translation: The Path from Archives to Creation
