Lecture by Jörg Huber and Daniel Späti
Taking a risk is usually more often associated with danger than with a chance that opens up new perspectives. In our daily life we are trying to secure and assure as much aspects possible, which starts with prenatal diagnostics even before we are born. We are (made being) afraid of the unknown and uncertain because it’s BEYOND of our control. …

Lecture by Manray Hsu
The contemporary art biennial is a global phenomenon. As part of cultural apparatus of modernity, the art biennial, like international expos, tends to be future-oriented, often with an optimistic, or even utopian tone. Just as modern utopian promises have been constantly broken, biennials (again, like expos) rarely if not never live up to what they propose to show on the exhibition level, let alone the social changes promised. Hence the so-called “biennial bashing,” prevalent in art circles around the world.

A film by Ella Raidel
“Double Happiness” takes the Chinese copy of Hallstatt, a small idyllic town in Austria, as the starting point to explore China’s Fast urbanization. Chinese cities are built where histories and memories can be easily forgotten and thus rewritten. …

Yuki Kihara’s illustrated lecture entitled Vision of Salome, centers on works she has produced in the last decade or so where she features herself in the guise of ‘Salome’ – a Samoan woman in Victorian mourning dress appearing in across video, live performance and photographic mediums while subverting historical cross-cultural representations of Pacific people, unpacking the myth of the Pacific as paradise and critiques the imposition of European concepts of gender and sexuality onto colonized peoples.

Lecture by Jörg Scheller
In the late 1960s and early 70s, Heavy Metal emerged as a distorted, extreme version of blues, rock’n’roll, rock and hard rock. It was only in the late 70s that it turned into a fully-fledged genre with clearly delineated boundaries and distinct characteristics: heavily distorted guitars, double-bass drumming, virtuoso solos and aggressive vocals. Soon, notions such as “true metal” (Manowar) or “classic metal” were used to stress that Heavy Metal was a self-contained, independent movement. …

Lecture by Joshua Wong
This discussion round will reflect on forms of protest culture in Hong Kong and Taipei. First, the invited guests will give an insight into the events and political situation at the time of the protest, and will bethink the effects and consequences on the different social and political contexts.

Elizabeth de Roza talk was about Project 50/100. It was a series of events that ran parallel to SG50 (a celebration of Singapore 50 years of celebration). The series of events offered alternatives, new perspectives and a platform of possibilities that were not part of the main SG50 celebration. Project 50/100 created counterpoint to what is out there as well as a bringing into being or to wider consciousness of what is not there. A kind of “uncovering the unseen, unheard and unacknowledged, reclaiming and reaffirming physical, artistic and intellectual neglected spaces, and hence enriching through diversity”.

Yenchen Wang and Wen Yau
This talk will focus of the function of art in protest culture, while examining different positions in the context of Taipei and Hong Kong. During the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong many protesters started creating art on the streets. For the students involved in the “Umbrella Revolution”, their art was a primary vehicle of expression.

A Film by Mei-Juin Chen
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. Many historians place the start of the conflict in China with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. This one-hour documentary offers a unique perspective on the political and cultural upheaval that followed. It traces the rise and fall of Li Xianglan, a.k.a. Shirley Yamaguchi, who deftly navigated the clash of nations to become one of Japan and China’s biggest movie stars during World War II. …