Taiwan indigenous artist Ciwas Tahos (林安琪) has been selected to travel to Australia to participate in the Art Exchange Partnership next year, following the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Australian Office Taipei and Taiwan's National Culture and Arts Foundation (NCAF); while Australian artist Deborah Cheetham will be visiting Taiwan for the exchange.
Ciwas Tahos is an Atayal Indigenous new media artist based in Taipei. She holds a BFA majoring in Visual Art from Simon Fraser University and is currently a Master of Fine Arts candidate at the School of Film and New Media, Taipei National University of the Arts. Ciwas Tahos has been exploring issues related to decolonization, self-identity, gender identity, environment, and social norms through interdisciplinary creations of videos, performance, internet and installation art. Ciwas Tahos hopes to learn more about the creative process of Australian curators and artists through the program, especially artists of the diaspora Asian and Indigenous communities, and find out how the artists reaffirm ethnic sovereignty and digital sovereignty with new media and digital technology.
Deborah Cheetham, from the Yorta Yorta Nation of Australia, is a soprano, composer, and educator. Cheetham has been a leader and pioneer in the Australian arts landscape for more than 25 years. She established the nonprofit opera company Short Black Opera in 2009 and has been committed to cultivating indigenous singers. Cheetham is currently a composer-in-residence for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.
NCAF Chair Lin Man-li (林曼麗) and Australia's Representative in Taiwan Jenny Bloomfield stated that they look forward to their contributions further enriching Australia-Taiwan cultural exchanges and deepening people-to-people links. The Arts Exchange Partnership will support and encourage further cooperation between Australian and Taiwanese artists, particularly indigenous artists. These exchanges will also serve as a lasting legacy of Australia-Taiwan Friendship Year celebrations.
(Photo courtesy of Ciwas Tahos, Short Black Opera)