Artist-in-residence

Residency period

5 July – 27 September 2019

About

The artistic practice of Chang Wen-Hsuan (b. 1991, Taiwan) questions the narrative structure of institutionalised history with re-readings, personal stories, and suggestions of fictional alternatives. Through versatile platforms including installations, videos, and lectures, she often navigates skewed documentations and first-person accounts to trigger reflections on how the understanding of history affects the purport of the present and thrust of the future. Her projects have been shown at Taipei Fine Arts Museum and Taiwan Biennial, Taichung, both Taiwan (2018); Inside-Out Art Museum, Beijing, China (2017); Musrara Mix Festival 17, Jerusalem, Israel (2017); inToAsia: Time-based Art Festival, Queens Museum, New York, United States (2015).

Focus

Intrigued by the power tensions embedded in historical narratives, during the residency Chang Wen-Hsuan will further her research on two different projects. Drawing comparisons between the conflicting relationship of the Taiwanese Communist Party, Japan, and China in Taiwan, and the Malayan Communist Party, Japan, and the United Kingdom in Singapore, the artist aims to excavate influences and discrepancies between different colonial legacies and forms of resistance. In parallel, she will also expand Writing FACTory, a roaming platform for writing and publishing that produces discourse, research, and printed matters as a space for artistic and political practice. This latter project, first launched in Taiwan in 2018, performs a critical examination of how writings are framed, shared, and circulated in today’s digital age. Chang will further develop it in the context of Singapore through library research and interviews conducted with independent local publishers, artists, and artist book fair organisers.

Residencies brochure (July – September 2019)