Shinobu Soejima

My Story

Absolute Space Artists-in-Residence Program for 2025 ➋

Here and There

Shinobu Soejima

Opening：2025.8.10 Sun 15:00-18:00

Forum：2025. 8.10 Sun 15:30-17:00

Panelist : Chen Kuan-Yu

Exhibition Period：2025.8.9 Sat - 8.24 Sun

Opening Hours：Wed-Sun 12:00-18:00

 Venue ： SanHo Art Lab

 Address：No. 14, Sanhe St., South Dist., Tainan City

Organizer：Absolute Space AIR

Co-organizer： Koganecho Area Management Center

Advisor：Ministry of Culture

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About the Exhibition

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This exhibition consists of two video works, both centered on temples (miao) in Tainan, Taiwan—one a yang miao (temple of positive spirits), the other a yin miao (of negative or unsettled spirits). Through these works, the artist explores the role of faith and folk belief within local communities from a personal perspective.

The yang miao piece is a stop-motion animation filmed at Sanjiao Zhen Gang Hai’an Temple, a shrine dedicated to the sea goddess Mazu. Puppet-like figures were placed on-site and animated playfully to depict the atmosphere of worship and celebration surrounding Mazu.

The yin miao piece focuses on the folklore surrounding the Qisui Guniang Miao (Seven-Year-Old Girl Temple), which enshrines the spirit of a girl who died young. One version of the legend says she was killed by Japanese soldiers during their invasion of the Xinying area, after courageously misleading them to protect local resistance fighters. Another tells that she died in a flood after helping others reach safety. Interweaving these multiple narratives, the film carefully renders her as both a victim and a symbolic figure of local memory.

Throughout the exhibition, contrasts of light and shadow, life and death, private and public, unfold across the two works.

A strange hybrid creature appears in both pieces—part human, part beast, with multiple legs, a human mask, and an animal’s torso. This figure walks freely, animated by the rhythms of Taiwanese parade music (zhen tou), as if dancing between realms.

During my time in Tainan, I began to perceive the outlines of collective structures—community, society, even the state—emerging from the patterns of daily life. People naturally gather at specific times and places, such as when waiting for the garbage truck on scheduled days. Even without exchanging words, simply being there affirms the presence of others.

On temple festival days, the roar of firecrackers and joyful music spreads throughout the neighborhood. Even from inside one’s home, it is possible to feel an invisible thread linking the self to the collective. The boundaries between private and public space grow increasingly porous.

Community is not only a gathering of individuals with shared purposes; it is also a process of moving toward those purposes along divergent paths. As the group grows, a certain awkwardness emerges—like a massive body attempting to move itself forward.

In these works, I embodied the layers of individual, local, and national identity in the form of this multi-legged chimera, representing the complexity and tension of collective existence.

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