Taiwanese artist at the Venice Biennale gives voice to Taiwan

The 54th Venice Biennale Taiwanese Pavilion in 2011 will be held on June 4th at the Palazzo delle Prigioni in Venice. This year, the Taiwanese Pavilion will curate an exhibition centered around "sound," presenting Taiwan's "social soundscape." The Taipei Fine Arts Museum has invited two artists, Wang Hong-kai and Su Yu-hsien, to participate in the exhibition, showcasing the voices of ordinary people in Taiwan. Zheng Hui-hua, the curator of this edition, stated that a sound database/bar will be set up at the venue, explaining the execution design team and conceptual framework of the project.

Wang Hong-kai’s work “Our Work March” captures the process of recording sounds at a sugar factory. (Photo courtesy / Taipei Fine Arts Museum)

The Taiwanese Pavilion’s exhibition this year is titled “Hear, and What Remains Unheard — Taiwan’s Social Soundscape,” an exhibition about “sound” that presents Taiwan’s “social soundscape.” The exhibition space will feature a planned “sound database/bar,” using audiovisual archives to outline Taiwan’s local history and social background. Visitors can casually relax in this public space and engage with Taiwan’s social context through listening. Cultural commentators Zhang Tieshi, Luo Yuequan, and architect Liu Kuo-chang jointly organized and designed this sound database. It showcases social movement sounds and sound creations from Taiwan’s lifting of martial law to the present, featuring around ten influential “sound events and recordings” that have driven social change in Taiwan.

Su Yu-hsien’s work “Drummer No. 10,” which was filmed featuring a drummer living under Highway No. 10. (Photo courtesy / Taipei Fine Arts Museum)

Wang Hong-kai’s work “Our Work March” takes “sound” as its main creative content and concept. She returned to her hometown of Huwei, Yunlin, collaborating with a local sugar factory that has a history of over 100 years. She invited retired employees and their families back to the factory, and through a series of sound workshops, she handed the microphones to the retirees and their families, encouraging them to actively record the sounds of their former working and living environments. Su Yu-hsien’s work “Those Insignificant Sounds” is a project focused on ordinary people. He delved into the lower strata of society, re-examining those leading diverse yet everyday lives, including scavengers, foreign shipworkers, and the homeless. Su Yu-hsien invited them to form bands and create “music,” producing albums, documentation, and other materials akin to independent band production methods, issuing amateur albums for these individuals or groups as a channel for their voices.

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