DA . DA ! 新美學.生活方程式: 10月 2011

2011年10月26日星期三

The ball is bouncing all over the place

It is funny how I am all the way in London, reporting for a blog based in Taiwan, and here/now, I am going to mention Takashi Murakami who is from Japan!

But I guess that is what the contemporary art scene (and not only) is all about.

We are all influenced by someone or something from the moment we are born; starting from within our family, our close environment, to our friends, our social surroundings and so forth... So sometimes it does strike me as odd or even extra ordinary when someone from the other side of the world seems to be pre-occupied with similar if not the same topic/s as me or a fellow artist etc.

I do wonder if as a starting point it has to do with the fact that we are all made out of the same stuff and therefore share the same (basic?) needs.

Recently, I went back to Greece to visit friends and family and what struck me as being really apparent was the fact that we all live in our little bubbles troubled by the same things, miles away from each other trying to survive. I say troubled but I also mean thrilled and delighted accordingly.

2011年10月11日星期二

‘By Way of Small Actions’ at Basket House Village Universe Gallery (BHVU Gallery)

I was wondering what I should write about and concluded that it would make more sense to start with a very recent, personal experience.

In July 2011 I participated in a simultaneous residency together with 5 other artists at BHVU Gallery, London. If you have never done a residency but you are thinking about it – do it! Do not think about it, just give it a go. I strongly recommend it to all artists out there, even if it had never crossed your mind. In Great Britain there are several residency opportunities happening all over the place!

It offers you a new environment to work in, a deadline to work towards and you get to meet new people, others who are interested in similar things to you and share same concerns. This residency was a rare opportunity for me as you do not often get the chance to work parallel to other artists in the same space and experience all that is associated with such a collective.

The residency took place throughout July, from Thursday to Sunday between the hours of 12 to 6pm, and was open to the public, to come and view the work in progress which was a bit awkward (at least in the beginning) as you felt you were the spectacle. On Friday the 29^th July we had our Private View and the exhibition went on for the following 2 days.

To apply to the residency you had to create a 7 page booklet together with a proposal and £10. I must admit that I found the booklet to be quite a challenge as I did the proposal. What do you say? How do you say it? How specific should you be regarding the final outcome? Should you be a bit vague in order to allow yourself to be influenced by the space and/or the rest of the people involved? Such and many more questions were raised. All I can say is that at the end of the day you can only put down what you are interested in, what you aim to gain out of this experience regardless of having a set idea or not.

As I mentioned above there were 6 of us and the interesting thing was that we were quite a multi-disciplinary group.

James Lowne & Andrew Stewart were working together creating a film.

Joanna Peace was creating an installation, her main material being fabric and occupied a corner of the gallery.

2011年10月3日星期一

在地人文精神與傳承-三峽The Can甘樂文創

以前在外念書的時候，就常常在想，台灣這麼小，有些外國人根本不知道它在哪裡，還有人問是個小島嗎？是泰國嗎？(拼音關係Taiwan≠Tailand)

歐美這些國家文化涵養這麼豐富的地方，美學的教育/人民的價值觀跟生活質感等的層次，就如同空氣般自然的在細胞裡環繞著，有時候覺得真是令人羨慕。

這讓我一直想阿想，相對於其他國家，台灣除了原住民/小吃/小紅花碎布，有沒有能夠讓外國人一眼就能辨識是台灣的形象呢？對於建國百年的台灣政府極力推動的文創產業（或稱軟實力），從落實生根到開花結果的現況是什麼呢？

最近，三峽，出現了一個讓我感動的地方叫做[CAN甘樂文創]。而且呢，聽說它已經小有名氣，開業一年了，它的產生，讓三峽產生了一個新的活力文化地點，聽說老闆本身出身自三峽，以前是旅遊節目的企劃後來才開了”甘樂“。以我自己的感覺，甘樂有別於其他文創咖啡店不同之處，在於它是用甘樂“文創志業”為名，與當地青年產生情感連結，喚醒對於三峽這塊土地的認同，並結合地方政府與民間組織，從“三峽在地的文化”與“尋根”的角度，讓新一代將舊一代的歷史發揚，產生在地的認同價值，成為有自信的三峽人。