Two Taiwanese comic artists — Adoor Yeh (阿多) and Doz Lin (林庭歆) — have been selected as the 2020-2021 artists-in-residence of the Maison des Auteurs in the French city of Angouleme, the world's capital of comics. The three-month residency program will take place at Cité Internationale de la Bande Dessinée et de l'Image, during which resident-fellows are subsidized to work on a project related to the visual art form.
As a creator of comics and visual design, Yeh is no stranger to art exhibitions at home and abroad; her works have also been published by international magazines. The Taipei-based artist will transform her application project "B'bu-maqaw" — named after the Atayal phrase for Cilan Mountain (棲蘭山) in Yilan County — into a medium-length fantasy comic combining magical realism with natural history during her residency in France.
Before attending the Angouleme International Comics Festival in 2017 as part of the annual Taiwanese delegation organized by the Ministry of Culture, Yeh founded the SIDE DOOR studio in 2010 and began to self-publish comics in 2013. Recent works include "Sore Throat," "Bus Bomb," "Remote Island," and "Winter."
Lin is a full-time animator who has held a number of art exhibitions highlighting her animations, illustrations, and comic arts. In 2019, she complied her works from a Facebook page that she runs — titled "The Tail Light (車尾燈)" and offers comic strips that capture people's daily conversations — and transferred them in print. The elements of reality and illusion are also common themes in her art.
In her application, the multi-talented artist stated her desire to explore why she has been burying herself in work and how she hopes to find the purpose of leading a busy life. Such reflections, along with bits and pieces of her upcoming residency in Angouleme, will be translated into a darkly absurd comic.
Yeh and Lin are scheduled to serve their Angouleme residency from December 2020 to February 2021.
As part of a cooperative pact that the Ministry of Culture inked with La Cité in 2014, the residency program aspires to promote the unique flavors of made-in-Taiwan comics. While the Ministry subsidizes the round-trip flight tickets, living expenses, and insurance of successful residents, the Maison des Auteurs provides them with housing and studio space.
Since 2014, the program has sent a total of ten Taiwanese comic artists — Ao Yu-hsiang (敖幼祥), Mickeyman (米奇鰻), 61Chi, Pam Pam Liu, Morning Anxiety (日安焦慮), Chen Pei-hsiu (陳沛珛), Weng Hung-yu (翁鴻瑜), Elainee Fang (房瑞儀), Penpoint (筆頭), and NIN — to share their thoughts on the comic format with artists from other countries while creating intriguing content with this powerful medium.