<essays> Chisai in 2024 (4)
Long time no see! After going to Berlin, Chisai had a big event in her life! It's not a lie, exaggeration, or joke. Let's read today's story!
The Nature of Cities event in Berlin (look, Chisai in 2024 (3)) gave me new challenge. It is "I also think about art and environmental issues". However then, it was different vector for me, it is Taiwan which was close to me.
In my first step, my consciousness changed completely after I passed the paper competition in the autumn of 2023. The competition is about "What is Japanese art history now?". My paper is that I wonder if it is Japanese art history; the artwork of Taiwanese artist used Japanese language and Japan colonial era's story, filmed and made in Japan, and had exhibition in Japan. I think I applied for paper to research center in US, it was different! In fact, it was sponsored by two universities in Israel and their email wrote, "Please come to Israel, you will give a presentation. We will let you know the details in a later email". When I received the email, I forwarded it to many friends in such a sentence I had never seen before and found out that my paper passed. It means my English level is low, but my paper passed. "Where is Israel?", I was looking at Google Maps when the war started.
In the end, I couldn't go to Israel, but I thought, "which country's competition should I apply for next?" There are no such paper competitions in Japan. And I happened to find websites by some universities in Taiwan.
And I applied for a paper competition in April. Actually, it was not hosted by the university in Taiwan, but by the Tainan Art Museum. Moreover, the title was “現代中的傳統 Tradition in the Modern”. You can see "現代" in the title, Japanese means "now, contemporary" but "a little while ago" like "modern" in Chinese. I am researching contemporary art, it is not modern! I forgot it because of my low Chinese level! Ha!!
When I received the email of the acceptance notice, it was just before I went to Berlin. It said, "And please send the Tainan Art Museum a long paper in two weeks". What will I be in Berlin for those two weeks, what can I do? When am I going to write the paper? It is an easy answer, in the airplane, I hardly slept and wrote in Chinese!!
My paper title is “Representation the scenery ―Tradition as Taiwanese artist's consciousness”. It looks old type, but I spoke about contemporary art in Taiwanese art with Japanese view. I found a big discovery that I felt as if I had never seen when I saw and wrote artworks by Taiwanese artists, especially landscape representation (not only paintings! contemporary art, too).
On the return flight, I arranged my writing and sent it to the Tainan Art Museum. Then the museum received it and replied to me, "are you coming to make a presentation? Is the presentation in English or Japanese?" —- My answer is “Chinese!”
Then I made PPT in a hurry. I asked my teacher, who gives lessons in Taiwanese (it is one of the languages in Taiwan) every week, to practice Chinese. She was enthusiastic and we had lessons every two days. And July 5th, the day of the presentation has come!!
As soon as my presentation was over, the professor Liao Hsin-tien 廖新田 who gave me a comment clapped his hands and approached me. "you are so interesting! What's more, the Japanese spoke Chinese!"
This gave me another idea. And the professor Liao invited me to join "the Taiwan Art History Association". I hesitated because I am not a member of any art history groups in Japan. Also many Japanese have denied that I want to study Taiwanese art in Japan. So I thought about whether I should participate in the association. But professor Liao is the executive director of it, I couldn't say "No", I decided to be a member.
That's it for today! Or rather, Chisai found her next goals and started to research. I can't write that here yet, but this series <essays> Chisai in 2024 is finished. So, I think I will forget to write on the Substack again, Ha!!