Finissage programme: Saturday 14th of December April 2024, from 15.00 hrs Location: Mediamatic Sluisdeurenloods This event will be held in English Admission: Free entrance
Host: Marwan Anaki Artist Talk Guests: 《Defining Divinity》 Lisette Alberti & Rising Lai（NL & TW/BE） 《Death on Stage》Shao-Chun Hsu (TW) Artist Performance Guests: Shao-Chun Hsu & Yong Shao (TW)
During Taiwan's colonized period, including under the colonial rule of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) from 1624 to 1668, some Dutch mortals were deified into the Taoist divine system - their legends passed down from generation to generation. Nowadays, there are Taoist temples that worship deified Dutch VOC-ers as gods and goddesses showing their portraits on altars. Their religious stories are the result of the shared memories of the region’s residents. Although the archive is showing hints of the stories’ origins, most of the stories have morphed history and fiction - creating a new folkloric telling of these VOC gods altogether.
Defining Divinity emphasizes folklore and religion as a tool to deconstruct imperialistic recollections of history with thorough and thoughtful consideration. The overall objective is to not just retell a particular history, but to also acknowledge the internalization and embodiment of history, whereby people effectively become living archives. By exploring the integration of the colonizer into the pre-colonial metaphysical framework, this project looks at religious, cultural and folkloric artifacts as tools to reappropriate one’s own history. This not only centers the Taiwanese experience of the VOC-period, but also assesses the repercussions of the colonial beyond the material.
Lisette Alberti is an artist-researcher investigating violence and the political conditions of its alleviation. Her practice investigates institutional and direct violence, collective memory, and justice. Through her background in International Relations and journalism, she makes interdisciplinary work merging theory and practice, building on political philosophy and abolitionism to deconstruct existing ideas of violence and justice.
Rising Lai is an artistic researcher and critical designer exploring the narratives behind objects. From industrial products to cultural artifacts, Rising investigates human creation and curates these stories compellingly. Through design, they research, contextualize, and speculate on the relationships between society, individuals, and material culture.
Death on Stage
Death on Stage examines rural Taiwanese funeral culture through the lens of advertising, reflecting on how commodification has altered these rituals’ meaning and function. Traditionally, grieving people stacked canned food on towers as an offering and to be shared by friends and family after the funeral. However, since the country adopted capitalism, the food and objects that the structure carries have changed. Towers of different heights and prices now indicate wealth and reputation, eroding their traditional meaning. The display of material wealth has overshadowed the focus on the deceased, turning a once profound ritual into an opportunity for the living to flaunt their status.
The installation and live ritual centre around a steel tower adorned with cast wax elements representing traditional Taiwanese and Chinese symbols of power and wealth. These elements melt and deform under the gaze of an infrared light, highlighting the transient nature of material wealth and the shifting values in funeral practices.
Shao-Chun Hsu is a designer from Taiwan with an architectural background. His work uncovers elusive connections between varying contexts of different timescales and ambiences, presenting alternative questions on current phenomena that move beyond the binary.
Yong Shao is a musician from Taiwan, incorporates elements of electronic music, jazz, and traditional Chinese music into composition, production, and performance.
Information
December 14, 2024 15:00-18:00 Free Entrance Location: Mediamatic Sluisdeurenloods This event will be held in English.
