ARTIST IN RESIDENCE & EXHIBITION
Artist: Chih Chung Chang
1 December 2023 – 27 January 2024

A Port Journey’s collaboration with the Art Indeed Foundation & the Bierumer School

Taiwanese artist Chih Chung Chang has been selected by Stichting Art Indeed as a guest artist at the Bierumer School. Art Indeed (2009) organizes ‘artist in resident’ projects in the city and province of Groningen, in which artists, researchers and local residents work together on art and research projects. They respond to current themes that are relevant locally but also resonate throughout society and the rest of the world.

Art Indeed collaborates internationally with art and research initiatives that organize similar projects in their own environment. The goal is to exchange projects and results with each other worldwide. In this way, we promote a global cultural dialogue from the perspective of the artist-researcher from different angles. We place local stories from Groningen in an international context and exchange knowledge and vision in order to better interpret our own stories.

In November and December, it is Chang’s turn to live and work in Bierum. You can visit him at set times during his stay. Check the website of the Bierumer School to see when you are welcome. In January he will conclude his stay with a presentation that can be seen all month long.

In the Sunshower

The concept of ‘Sunshower’, rain in sunshine, has no particular meteorological cause. This rather rare, eccentric phenomenon, in which a rainbow often appears, has been given all kinds of names and meanings in cultures worldwide, and interpretations derived from vivid imagination.

In Flanders, people talk about “duivelskermis” and “duiveltjeskermis” (devils fair)”. In Japan, it is called a “fox’ wedding (狐の嫁入り)”, and in Korea, it is associated with folk tales about fox, tiger and cloud. That is why terms such as “fox’ rain (여우비)” or “the tiger’s wedding day (호랑이장가가는날)” emerged there.

Changs continues and expands his artistic exploration of weather and climate in the Bierumer School. Water and humidity as a wet/liquid medium are part of this. It is a journey of discovery that began in the warm summer in the south, at the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht, and has now led him to a cold winter in the north, to Bierum. There he wants to further explore his somatosensory experiences, which are interwoven with narrative approaches from his historical and cultural studies.

From the departure from Tainan (Formosa, now Taiwan) on July 30, 1653, until the shipwreck of De Sperwer in the summer storm on August 17, Hendrick Hamel, accountant of the VOC, left only a few words. What happened in the void of this story?

During this project, Chang combines his research into the concept of “monsoon” with his personal reflection on Hendrick Hamel’s book from the Rotterdam City Archives. In it, Hamel tells about his journey of survival, the unexpected landing and the discovery of the Korean Kingdom during his journey from Taiwan to Japan. Chang processes historical data and legends about the weather into a fictional story and unveils the Taiwanese imagination that is hidden behind this unexpected journey.

Chang views the ocean from the Anthropocene worldview. He sees water as a medium that permeates everything, both in the invisible and visible worlds. Water embodies the instability of transition, of flow and of the anti-subjectivity that suits his home country Taiwan, and its prevailing subtropical monsoon climate. His art is about rapidly changing environments such as those found on a ship or island and in the water or a harbour. He tries to unveil the universal in the grey area where tension arises between man, civilisation and nature and where they constantly reshape each other.

His work often originates from a text and stories that he integrates with other media or projects and workshops that take place at specific locations through sharp craftsmanship. Chang uses art to promote maritime culture in education and knowledge institutions worldwide. He is co-founder of the alternative art space Waley Kunst in western Taipei, and co-founder of the art education platform Studio Floatel.