Past Residents

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Taiwan

Past Resident
2024: Ministry of Culture, Taiwan

Artist

Huang I-Hsiang

Huang I-Hsiang works with video, documentary, and spatial installations, using “site-specificity” as a core notion. For I-Hsiang, this mode of thinking is deeply rooted in the concept of the “body,” wherein site-specificity embodies a distinct form of “specific corporeality,” manifesting in space and serving as the foundation of his artistic work. As a result, his creations feature a mutually reflected chain of relationships between the body, space, and institution.

Huang I-Hsiang has exhibited work at Absolute Space for the Arts, Tainan City; Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Taipei; El Instante Fundación, Madrid, among others.

Events & Exhibitions

2024 Spring Open Studios
April 12–April 13, 2024
A Practice of Silence begins with a vague visual impression, the administrative figure of the Absolute Space, a silent presence always sitting in the corner of the exhibition venue. Her work is a series of interpretations, empathy, and understanding. She is always there, yet hard to notice. She is the caretaker of the venue, and I want to depict such a character. My curiosity lies in her physical and psychological relationship with the venue; my curiosity wonders why she is here and whether she has ever thought about leaving. In short, everything related to this job, including emotions and circumstances. During the exhibition, I invited theater practitioner Tseng Jing-Wen, who is dedicated to promoting People's Theatre, along with former administrative staff from Absolute Space who worked here at different times, to conduct a body workshop. My basic idea is, the arrival of newcomers marks the departure of the old, and the interchange between new and old forms the life of a character. These participants, through shared memories, will engage in a self- dialogue belonging to this character during the workshop. Finally, on the last day of the exhibition, we held a screening event showcasing the workshop's video documentation at the venue.
Huang I-Hsiang, A Practice of Silence, 2023, single channel video.
A Practice of Silence begins with a vague visual impression, the administrative figure of the Absolute Space, a silent presence always sitting in the corner of the exhibition venue. Her work is a series of interpretations, empathy, and understanding. She is always there, yet hard to notice. She is the caretaker of the venue, and I want to depict such a character. My curiosity lies in her physical and psychological relationship with the venue; my curiosity wonders why she is here and whether she has ever thought about leaving. In short, everything related to this job, including emotions and circumstances. During the exhibition, I invited theater practitioner Tseng Jing-Wen, who is dedicated to promoting People's Theatre, along with former administrative staff from Absolute Space who worked here at different times, to conduct a body workshop. My basic idea is, the arrival of newcomers marks the departure of the old, and the interchange between new and old forms the life of a character. These participants, through shared memories, will engage in a self- dialogue belonging to this character during the workshop. Finally, on the last day of the exhibition, we held a screening event showcasing the workshop's video documentation at the venue.
Huang I-Hsiang, A Practice of Silence, 2023, book, dimensions variable.
The Outsiders is a narrative short film shot with a focus on site-specificity. The story revolves around three main characters: a part-time worker, a street artist, and an artist from abroad. Despite each of them being involved in somewhat art-related jobs within and around the museum, their work is loosely related, and they have no communication with each other. In this piece, I attempt to depict an urban lifestyle, using the Taipei Contemporary Art Museum as a backdrop, showcasing the lack of interaction among people in the city.
Huang I-Hsiang, The Outsiders, 2020, single channel video, 10 min.
Untitled is a single-channel video installation based on site-specificity, located in a passage near the entrance of the exhibition venue. During the daytime, sunlight filters in through the door crack, naturally casting shadows on the exterior walls of the venue. I captured a segment of these shadows during the exhibition setup and projected the footage back to its original location in proportion. Most of these shadows come from the "real world" outside the exhibition door. At this boundary between the interior and exterior of the venue, viewers will encounter a visual recording where reality and illusion intersect.
Huang I-Hsiang, Untitled, 2019, single channel video, 6 min.
The Maiden’s Prayer is a video installation based on the concept of site-specificity. The artwork consists of four sets of synchronized audio-visual playback. I selected four different locations within the exhibition space and captured the events from various angles. Subsequently, I projected these recorded images back to their original positions in a proportional manner. Visitors at the exhibition will witness different spatial dimensions of past moments, while the figures in the artwork resemble ghosts, continuously traversing and returning within different interfaces of imagery.
Huang I-Hsiang, The Maiden's Prayer, 2018, 4 channel video, 2 min.

Residents from Taiwan

Feng-Yi Chu

Taiwan
Ministry of Culture, Taiwan
2024

Hung-Yen Chang

Taiwan
Ministry of Culture, Taiwan
2023

Yen-Yi Lee

Taiwan
Ministry of Culture, Taiwan
2023
South Korea, Canada

Past Resident
2024: Canada Council for the Arts

Artist

Insoon Ha

Insoon Ha explores themes of power, colonialism, hybridity, and the abject. Working across several media, her work takes shape in visceral forms, producing scenes that probe and disturb. In her creative process, Ha draws upon both her personal and cultural history and the capacity for dichotomy that we all embody.

Insoon Ha has exhibited work at Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto; CEPA Gallery, Buffalo; and Whanki Museum, Seoul, among others.

Events & Exhibitions

Artists at Work: Insoon Ha in conversation with Feng-Yi Chu
May 28, 2024, 6:30–7:30pm
2024 Spring Open Studios
April 12–April 13, 2024
Insoon Ha, Dirge, 2023, recycling paper, 16 × 16 × 12 in. (40.64 × 40.64 × 30.48 cm).
Insoon Ha, Tear, 2018, aquaresin, 12 × 10 × 79 in. (30.48 × 25.4 × 200.66 cm).
Insoon Ha, Limb, 2018, rubber and rebar, 4 × 63/8 × 31 in. (10.16 × 16.26 × 78.74 cm).
Multiple digital self-portraits are installed on the gallery floor. I conduct a performance as part of this installation in which I wash the photographs after they have been walked on by visitors and then use the water to wash my face.
Insoon Ha, Face, 2015, digital prints, 24.
Insoon Ha, Face, 2004, plaster.

Residents from Canada

Jude Griebel

Canada, United States
Canada Council for the Arts
Studio #301

Alice Wang

United States, Canada
Canada Council for the Arts, Capsule Shanghai
Studio #213

Stanley Wany

Canada
Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec
2024
Turkey

Past Resident
2024: SAHA Association

Artist

Alper Aydin

In his practice, Alper Aydın strives for his works to be understood within their geographical context, aiming for an interpretation that incorporates the spatial presence of living beings, notably humans, within ecological processes. Aydın’s diverse practice, which includes sculpture, installation, performance, architecture, and video, allows the energy of each venue to guide his creative process. Through this approach, he intends to explore and reflect upon humanity’s existence in nature from a multitude of perspectives.

Alper Aydın has exhibited work at Istanbul Biennial, Turkey; Kochi-Muziris Biennale, India; and Changwon Sculpture Biennale, South Korea, among others.

Events & Exhibitions

2024 Spring Open Studios
April 12–April 13, 2024
Throughout history, domes—the components of buildings pointing to the sky—have been identified as the source of spirituality and able to deliver the images, narratives, and messages of the skies. In this work, two large-sized satellite dishes whirling around their axes stand level with the audience and, with their controlled rotation, get in a loop akin to the movement of the planet, the sun, and the moon, formation of months and years. One of the dishes of these two technical systems holds the ornaments and the Arabic calligraphy of the dome of Hagia Sophia. The other one carries the dome of parecclesion of Chora Monastery depicting the Virgin and Child and the angels. The forms and the ornaments of these small representations of the vault of heaven have been adapted to the antenna systems used to communicate, observe, and receive signals. The micro vaults of heaven are placed next to people instead of above. They unite with the sky in the open air. This work directs people’s gaze to outer space, the unknown, and the infinitude of imagination and reflects hope about the future.
Alper Aydin, Face to Face, 2023, aluminum, iron, oil acrylic, gold-leaf and concrete, 130 × 151 × 169 in. (330.2 × 383.54 × 429.26 cm).
Acclaimed Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch depicted heaven on the left panel of the triptych, The Garden of Earthly Delights, painted circa 1490–1500. In this composition, every figure is around the small lake in the center of the painting, and in the center of this lake stands so naturally, an imaginary pink fountain made of plants and shells of crabs, oysters, and sea urchins. Alper Aydın was touched to see that almost everything occurs around this fountain. He builds a similar one in the center of an antique quarry filled with seawater on Cape Sülü to create a space for conversing and discussing the world's state of mind. By concretizing Bosch’s fountain design by upcycling the plastics drifted to the shore with storms, a faithful adaptation from two dimensions to three, the artist opens the way for nature, animals, and human beings to perceive the fountain.
Alper Aydin, The Source of Life, 2023, upcycled plastic, polyester resin, iron and obsidian, 102 × 275 × 39 in. (259.08 × 698.5 × 99.06 cm).
The city of Ordu has been subject to excessive and sudden rains and floods in recent years due to the emergence of the potent effects of global warming, wrong environmental policies, and unplanned urbanization. Humans, animals, and plants lost their lives, and habitats disappeared. “Post-Apocalyptic Narrative” derives from an archive of the traces of loss that Alper Aydın has composed in Cape Jason, where he also lives, by collecting the objects and remains washed ashore after disasters. Referring to the deteriorating dynamics of nature, the installation is composed of two sculptures: in the first one, a snake that doesn’t know where to go enwinds the trunk of a tree without roots and branches. On another collapsed trunk hanging from the ceiling are a man and a wolf in such a setting that whoever moves, the balance will be disturbed inevitably. We are left alone with the last remaining traces of a forest in a post-apocalyptic time.
Alper Aydin, Post-Apocalyptic Narrative, 2023, polyester, 80x46x204 (wolf and man), 165x27x27 (snake).
In the first movie of the Matrix trilogy, the protagonist Neo must choose between red and blue pills. The blue pill will return him to the fictional order in which he has always existed, and the red pill will allow him to see what is happening outside that fictional order. Taking its name from this movie scene, Alper Aydın’s Red Pill (2023), produced for the WE BELONG exhibition, is a sailboat turned upside down. He is ready to set out for all the discoveries his imagination can take, floating in the air on a plane limited neither by land nor by the boundaries of the ocean. It is an invitation to look at the world we live in, our lives, from different perspectives and to make us think about what is real.
Alper Aydin, Red Pill, 2023, metal and fibre, 161 × 307 × 35 in. (408.94 × 779.78 × 88.9 cm).
In this piece of art, rocks from nature touched with a statistical thinking.Place that is choosed consciously has an esthtatical view and convenient for statistical research inside it. The each interferes on the place was made with discount and was written with white water-based paint and with a big amount of care for not damaging the rocks.The numbers that was created by humans choosed in the daily life to calculate the human’s value.While the this numbers that was created by human transfered to the amorf things in nature, dialog between nature and human was expected to seen. This situation creates a paradoxical view to the people who go over that beach during their whole life and audience. Again, meaningless things were weighned and named exactly same with the values, it represent the image of people’s inside thinking which is human creates themselves limits to judge the situations and classified them. This is a reaction to public’s meta perception with measuring the natural objects.
Alper Aydin, Real Weight of Stones, 2011, water based paint on stones, dimensions varied.

Residents from Turkey

Eda Gecikmez

Turkey
SAHA Association
2023

Civan Özkanoğlu

United States, Turkey
Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, Alice and Lawrence Weiner, New York City Council District 34, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council, New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, Hartfield Foundation, Danna and Ed Ruscha
2020

Sümer Sayin

Turkey, Germany
SAHA Association
2022