Taiwanese art pioneer Chen Chieh-jen turns his camera lens to history and overlooked aspects of society. His epic yet serene films have attracted great acclaim all over the world.
This performance is based on his most recent video installation, Realm of Reverberations (2014), adapted here into a new lecture performance. It focuses on the stories of patients at Losheng (“happy life”) Sanatorium, an isolation hospital for Hansen’s disease (leprosy) patients dating back to the Japanese colonial period in Taiwan. Drawing on this shared history between Japan and Taiwan, Realm of Reverberations cuts quietly into the implications the institution has for contemporary society. Chen’s gaze turns not only to the patients designated as “unclean” but also to people ostracized as political dissenters. This Japan staging has been especially redeveloped as a fusion of lecture and video.
members to meet the artist (one drink included).
Commons Talk is an event for sharing artistic and social ideas, based on the themes of a performance. Artists, guests and audiences engage in dialogue together in an informal setting.
This film examines Losheng (“happy life”) Sanatorium, which was established as an isolation hospital for Hansen’s disease (leprosy) patients in 1930, when Taiwan was a colony of Japan. The first screening saw the four parts of the film projected in four places outdoors at the actual sanatorium, with the result that audiences walked through the grounds alongside the present-day patients. Functioning not just as a film but also as a socially engaged art project, it attracted widespread attention and acclaim. This single-screen showing of the work in Tokyo can be experienced as a standalone film installation, but also offers a valuable opportunity for audiences to learn more about the background to the accompanying lecture performance.
Born in 1960, Chen Chieh-jen is one of Taiwan’s most prominent video and visual artists. During the repressive Cold War period of martial law in Taiwan during the 1980’s, he created provocative guerrilla-style performances and exhibitions. Following an artistic hiatus following the end of martial law, he resumed his creative activities in 1996, working mainly with video art and photography. His work deals with social issues and actual places and people, which he films and presents as fiction. He also integrates the process of action towards social problems into his artworks. Today based in Taipei, his work was presented at the Venice Biennale in 1999 and 2000, the Gwangju Biennale in 2000 (Special Award), and the Shanghai Biennale in 2014. His major solo exhibitions include at the Queens Museum of Art in 2008 and Taipei Fine Arts Museum in 2010.