Charwei Tsai – Page 10

Screening of Song Project

DIASPORA: Exit, Exile, Exodus of Southeast Asia – 2018 to 2019

DIASPORA: Exit, Exile, Exodus of Southeast Asia
Curated by Loredana Paracciani
Selected Screening of Charwei Tsai
MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, Chiangmai, Thailand
3 March 2018 ~ 3 March 2019

Prompted by the growing interest in migration and border crossing, and in response to

the positive feedback received from both local and international audiences, MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum is pleased to extend the exhibition DIASPORA: Exit, Exile, Exodus of Southeast Asia to continue to explore, through contemporary art, issues of displacement and hybridity of the region.

DIASPORA: Exit, Exile, Exodus of Southeast Asia presents contemporary art from Southeast Asia that considers the recent and ongoing movement of people within and away from the region since the outbreak of the Vietnam War. Eighteen established and emerging artists from Southeast Asia and beyond explore three defining passages of dispersion, reflected in the title: to exit, or to leave the home country for economic betterment; to be in exile, or refused return for oftentimes political reasons; and to move in exodus, as a group of stateless and dispossessed people fleeing crises

or war. Exit, exile and exodus are the cornerstones of these thought-provoking works, both existing and newly commissioned, featured in the exhibition. Developed around the notion of ‘diaspora’ as methodological framework, the works not only reflect the artists’ impression of their own experiences of transitory life and resettlement, but also examine the migratory circumstances that have shaped Southeast Asia as a region of diverse ethnicities, religions and languages.

In line with DIASPORA: Exit, Exile, Exodus of Southeast Asia outreach program, MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum is delighted to announce Taiwanese artist Charwei Tsai

special screening, specifically showing together three video works of the Singing Project Series. Through the universal language of song, these works shed light on the condition of migration and displacement in the United Kingdom, Nepal and Southeast Asia. Selected works were commissioned by the Hayward Gallery and featured at Southbank Centre, London, in 2017.

Song of the Migrant Workers of Kaoshiung Harbor

Songs of the Migrant Workers of Kaohsiung Harbor – 2018 – Malik

Songs of the Migrant Workers of Kaohsiung Harbor
2018
HD video with color & sound, 16’4”
In collaboration with Tsering Tashi Gyalthang
Commissioned by & Collection of Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts,
Taiwan

Along the Kaohsiung harbor where Taiwanese fishing vessels are docked, one will find many migrant workers from various countries. Many of them are young men in their twenties and it may be their first time on land after a year or two working in the middle of the ocean with no contact to the outside world. Until their contract is over, the ships are their only homes and this harbor their only ground. We invited them to share songs from their own homes that were meaningful to them during their long journey in foreign lands and waters. Many expressed the complex feelings of working in Taiwan, including the loneliness of living on the sea and the hardship that they have to endure in their work. This is our third video in the series where we collected songs of people around the world whose voices are often unheard.

*Songs of the Migrant Workers of Kaohsiung Harbor* – 2018

《高雄港漁工之歌》2018 高畫質有聲彩色錄像 16’4”

與慈仁建塘合作

高雄美術館委託製作與收藏

沿著台灣漁船停泊的高雄港而行，可以看到很多從不同國家來的外籍漁工。他們多半是20 幾歲的年輕小夥子，跟著漁船出海工作，在汪洋大海上度過與外界失聯的一兩年後，首次回到陸地上。在合約終止前，他們只能以漁船為家，港口為棲。我們邀請他們挑首在異地外洋討生活的漫長年月中，對他們有特殊意義的家鄉歌，與我們分享。移工們透過歌聲傾訴在台灣打拼的複雜情感，唱出在海上的孤寂和工作上必須受的苦。這是我們合作收集世界各地常被忽略的人們所唱的歌，製作而成的第三部錄像作品。

Songs of the Migrant Workers of Kaohsiung Harbor – 2018

Hear Her Singing

Hear Her Singing, 2017, Southbank Centre, London

Hear Her Singing, 2017, Video
In collaboration with Tsering Tashi Gyalthang
Commissioned by Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, London, UK
With support from the Ministry of Culture, Taiwan

Hear Her Singing is a newly commissioned Hayward Gallery project by Taiwanese artist Charwei Tsai, in collaboration with Tibetan filmmaker Tsering Tashi Gyalthang, taking the universal nature of song to create a platform for refugees and asylum seekers currently living or detained in the UK. In a series of film installations at Southbank Centre, Tsai presents multiple voices of struggle, resistance and hope.

*Hear Her Singing*, 2017, Installation view, Southbank Centre, London. Photo: Amas Amat Amo.

Tsai has developed Hear Her Singing with the charities Bedford Music in Detention and Women for Refugee Women. Working closely with each organisation and vocal leader Phoene Cave, the project was initiated with a series of vocal workshops with women at Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre in Bedfordshire and the Women for Refugee Women drama group who meet every Saturday at Southbank Centre. Drawing on the foundations of care and solidarity between the women, Tsai used the vocal workshops to invite the groups to sing to each other and send each other messages via audio recordings, creating a point of exchange for women who have experienced similar journeys.

*Hear Her Singing*, 2017, Installation view, Southbank Centre, London. Photo: Cliff Lauson

Following the workshops, the Women for Refugee Women drama group were invited to sing their chosen songs to camera as dedications to the struggle of women in Yarl’s Wood and beyond. These personal and powerful songs include religious, political and pop songs as well as original material. Performed and filmed in various locations around the Royal Festival Hall, Hear Her Singing creates a presence for the women’s voices across the site and invites visitors to stop and listen where they are encountered.

With thanks to the Dr. Cheryl Lai, Shih-yin Huang, Dr. Stephanie Rosenthal, Rahila Haque, Holly Hunter, Jih-Wen Yeh, Phoene Cave, Vanessa Lucas-Smith, Natasha Walter, Rebecca Laughton, Marchu Girma, and Neil Massey.

Songs of Chuchepati Camp

Songs of Chuchepati Camp, 2017, Video

Charwei Tsai & Tsering Tashi Gyalthang
Songs of Chuchepati Camp
2017
Video with sound & color, 17min03sec

We visited Chuchepati Camp for the earthquake victims in Kathmandu. After spending some time at the camp we decided to record songs sung by the victims from all walks of life, expressing their current state of mind. Some sang traditional Nepali folk songs while others improvised their life stories. The project looks to connect people with one another on a basic human level, and transcend social, economic, cultural and religious difference. Emphasizing common values and the simplest of human desires – to be free from suffering – the project eschews political rhetoric to share and give visibility to the personal experiences of those seeking refuge.

*Songs of Chuchepati Camp*, 2017, Video, Exhibition view, Galerie Mor Charpentier

Special thanks to the support of Kesang Tseten, Shyam Karki, Tsering Rhitar, Tsetan Dolkar, and the Sacred Himalaya team at The New School, New York.

Universe of Possibilities

Primordial-Awareness, 2016

Photographs
Dimensions range from 60cm – 150cm

Central to Tsai’s practice is her use of ephemeral objects to reflect upon the transient nature of human perception. This photographic series, Universe of Possibilities (2016), extends her examination to the immense possibility of our human mind to reverse perceptions of seemingly permanent entities or situations. What at first glance appear to be planets turn out to be close-ups of off-casts that had been discarded in mass quantities by commercial fishing boats along the coast of Central Vietnam. On closer inspection, each photograph is inscribed with a handwritten note: Multiple Truths; Luminous Mind; Profound Simplicity; among them.