Asia Art Archive and Woofer Ten co-present a talk by Taiwanese artist and activist, Tang Huang-Chen.
In 2010, a number of Taiwanese artists gathered together and set up an Art Creators Trade Union to establish a set career trajectory for art workers, labeling new definitions of ‘work’ and invoking public respect for art creation as a profession. The following year, Taiwanese artist and activist Tang Huang-Chen called on local artists to set up the ‘Taipei City Art Creators Trade Union’. Through the process, Tang realised that by connecting the core beliefs of many, artists could indeed trigger a cultural and social movement.
Aside from the need for an independent and autonomous organisation for art and cultural workers, is there any other social significance in establishing a work union for art creators? In this talk, Tang will discuss various issues related to establishing an art creators trade union, from social movement models, identity issues, and ideological definitions of art creators, to the impact and challenge of establishing such a union. She will also relate her discussion to her travelling project, entitled Go Traveling IX / The Sojourner.
Artist and activist Tang Huang-Chen was born in Taipei, Taiwan. She graduated from the Department of Fine Arts, National Taiwan Normal University, and the Department of Plastic Art, University Paris VIII. In 1991, Tang returned to Taiwan from France, and continued initiating art projects and more than 40 actions to this day. Tang has been consistently concerned with the development of the Taiwanese art and cultural ecology. She transformed a wine factory that had been abandoned for 10 years into a cross-disciplinary exhibition and performing art space, and thereafter launched the ‘Huashan Art District’ in 1997. In 2008, Tang initiated an art action project entitled ‘Plant Art Act’. She and several other Taiwanese artists set up the Art Creators Trade Union in 2009. In early 2011, she set up the Taipei City Art Creators Trade Union. In April 2011, Tang will be stationed at the local Hong Kong organisation, Woofer Ten, as their artist-in-residence and will initiate a project entitled In Search of the Crevice in a City – from Taipei to Hong Kong (tentative translation). For more details, please visit: http://blog.roodo.com/citybody2011
DVD documentation of this talk is now available for viewing at the Archive.
