Featuring diverse types of artists from home and abroad, the contemporary art biennale "Green Island Human Rights Art Festival" is set to kick off from May 17 to Sep. 17 at the Green Island White Terror Memorial Park. Launched by the National Human Rights Museum (NHRM) under the Ministry of Culture, the exhibition "Listening to the Overtones of Fissures (傾聽裂隙的回聲)," co-curated by Tsai Ming-jiun (蔡明君), Chen Wei-lun (陳韋綸) and Tsai Ping-ju (蔡秉儒), will showcase 15 newly commissioned creations by 22 groups of international and domestic artists.
At the pre-event press conference on May 5, Tsai Ming-jiun, head of the curatorial team, emphasized that the exhibition seeks to provide a path to understanding the White Terror period in Taiwan from 1949 to 1992, exhibiting works across multiple disciplines, including installation art, photographic works, video installations, sound creations, and documentary records.
In his speech, Minister Shih stated that the Green Island Human Rights Art Festival returns after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic. Through collaborative learning and mutual creation involving young artists, experts and scholars, political victims and their families, the White Terror history and memory are passed on to the future generation and the general public. This is not only an important work of the NHRM, but also a common memory of the lives of every generation in Taiwan. He hopes that the festival can become part of the itineraries of tourists and leave a lasting impression.
This year, the festival puts a special focus on the reinterpretation of art and the collaborative creations of political victims. One of the participating artists, Liu Chi-tung (劉紀彤), combined the panoramic image of Green Island taken by political victim Chen Meng-he (陳孟和) in 1962 with images taken by people in the present who revisited the same locations and turned these images into postcards that visitors can send from Green Island. The purpose of these postcards is to facilitate dialogue about human rights by transmitting stories from the past to the present.
In its fourth edition, the four-month festival will also host a variety of activities including workshops and lectures to help the audience learn more about the event. For more information, please visit the festival's official website and Facebook page.