The Taiwan Cultural Center in Paris has been collaborating with OVNi association (Objectif Vidéo Nice) since 2021, inviting Taiwanese artists to partake in the OVNi International Video Art Festival (le Festival Objectif Vidéo Nice), an innovative and original platform for the promotion of video art. This year, Taiwanese visual artist Niu Jun-qiang (牛俊強), a nominee of the 17th Taishin Arts Award, has been invited to attend the 3-day "OVNi in the hotel (旅館系列)" event, showcasing one of his video installations and two pieces of photographs.
Niu Jun-qiang's exhibited work, "Reveal (彰顯)," is a three-channel video installation. Departing from a film clip, the work invited a hypnotist to narrate the film "Nostalgia" by Soviet filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky to the candle fire. Amidst the flickering light of the candle fire, audiences were led to discuss the correspondence between the images of internal consciousness and external images. Inspired by the artist's personal religious experiences and exploration of collective subconsciousness, the work explores how vision functions as a form of existence.
The other two photographs are part of the series "The Borderline (邊界)," which is the artist's creative project in recent years, focusing on the relationship between religious beliefs and diseases.
Born in 1983, Niu is the assistant professor of Communication of design at Shih Chien University, and director with the Association of the Visual Arts in Taiwan (AVAT). His artworks mainly focus on video, film and mixed media installations. During the creative process, Niu has investigated the incredible relations between materiality and spirituality which in our life consciousness from individuals to groups.
Established in 2015, the Ovni festival is in its 8th edition this year. Every year at the end of November, the festival brings together a number of cultural players from the city of Nice to create an event and give visibility to emerging video artists and established video makers.