“Bat Night Market (蝙蝠祭),” a performance co-created by Taiwanese artist Ku Kuang-yi (顧廣毅) and U.K. artist Robert Charles Johnson, is set to premiere at the London International Festival of Theatre (LIFT) on June 10.
“Bat Night Market” tells the tales of the extraordinary bat species, examining their imperative nature in our global ecosystem. The performance is set in an imagined night market where bat species are extinct. It intersects performance, speculative design, and science, inviting visitors to celebrate these enigmatic animals in an evening of discussions, games, tastings, and sensory experiences.
Ku Kuang-yi lives and works both in Taiwan and the Netherlands. He is doing his Ph.D. research at Sheffield Hallam University, UK, researching the interdisciplinary practice between art, design, and bioscience. His works often deal with the human body, sexuality, interspecies interaction, and medical technology, aiming to investigate the relationships among technology, individuals, and the environment.
Robert Johnson is a British designer with an MA in Social Design from the Design Academy Eindhoven. Working with film and interactive design, Johnson’s projects create alternative narratives using fictional writing as a design research tool, creating characters and dialogues that highlight issues surrounding social attitudes towards labour, materials, and waste streams within the circular economy.
“Bat Night Market” will be held from June 10 to 15. For more information, please visit LIFT’s website.