Built on the foundation of the Nusantara Archive website (www.heath.tw) that was newly updated in July 2021, Twinning Archipelago: 2021 Nusantara Archive Virtual A-I-R Program previously invited artists from Taiwan and the Malay Archipelagos and will now be launching Part 1 of its Artist Presentation at VA Hub on November 21st, 2021 from 2PM to 4PM. A continuation of the NML Residency and Nusantara Archive Project exchange approach of Nusantara (Malay Archipelago) from 2017 to 2019, the 2021 Virtual A-I-R Program has invited four groups of artists: Li Kuei-Pi, lololol (Xia Lin + Sheryl Cheung), Phuan Tai-Meng (Malaysia), and Irwan Ahmett and Tita Salina (Indonesia). The theme, “Twinning Archipelago,” attempts to respond to the multifarious connections between islands, expanding the previous focus on the Malay cultural circle to target the topological connections between different archipelagos. The key to such imagination is tied to the Chinese phrase of “群島” (Qun Dao, archipelago) and its corresponding English translation of “Islands/ Archipelgao/ Nusantara.” Throughout the pandemic, humans were isolated from each other, forced to experience solitude as islands of our own as we exist collectively as an island. Between islands, we continue to uncover shared intimate virtual spaces of the past through instant messenger exchanging, video meeting, podcast listening, etc., that have now been forgotten.
All the lands within the seas are united in one body, and all living things are being nurtured in love; life has never been so affluent in preceding generations as it is today. (Sultan Mansur of Melaka to the King of Ryukyu, 1468)
In Part 1 of the Artist Presentation, Li Kuei-Pi, lololol, and Phuan Tai-Meng will be showcasing Podcast livestreams, Google Earth-based and other VR interfaces as alternative media for proposals (to the written proposals found in the bilingual “Nusantara Archive” pamphlets 1~10). We hope to present the dialectical process of islands transcending borders, departing from each other, and coming together. The A-I-R Program this year has invited artists (Irwan Ahmett, Tita Salina, and lololol member – Sheryl Cheung) that participated in the Cultural Taiwan Foundations’ 2020 Workshop: Nusantara in Future Tense. The introduction of new artists such as Li Kuei-Pi, Phuan Tai-Meng, and lololol member – Xia Lin also injects more local colors into the project. The artists apply workshops, field research, and other participatory art forms to explore and uncover the diverse paths into “Twinning Archipelagos” to further construct the “Nusantara in Future Tense” network that is as rich and infinite as the ocean. (Part 1 of the Artist Presentation will be conducted in Chinese, while Part 2 will be an online conversation of Irwan Ahmett and Tita Salina with Yap Sau-Bin, a Malaysian curator, as keynote speaker. Details of the presentation will be announced soon on the Nusantara Archive website.)
Date: November 21st, 2021; 2PM~4PM
Venue: VA HUB (Basement of No. 20, Lane 353, Linsen N Rd, Zhongshan District, Taipei)
*For those attending the presentation on November 21st (Sun), please fill out the health declaration.
Advisor: Ministry of Culture (Taiwan)
Producer: The Cultural Taiwan Foundation
Co-Producer: SEA plateaus
Organizer: Nusantara Archive / Digital Art Foundation
Project Director: Rikey Tenn
Project Co-Host: Esther Lin Yi-chun
Technical Support: Et@t
Designer: Zoe Chen