Photo courtesy of Wu Cheng-chang (吳政璋)

London, Sept. 6 (CNA) The Taiwan pavilion at the 2018 London Design Biennale has been picked by a design magazine in the city as one of the top 10 displays among the entries from some 40 countries and territories at the show that opened on Sept. 4.

Themed "Invisible Calls," the Taiwan pavilion presents work by two very different new media artists, which is worth seeing, said Augusta Pownall, design editor of Dezeen magagine, in her review of the 10 best installations at the show.

In the Taiwan pavilion, the first display, by Wu Cheng-chang (吳政璋), plays on three tandem screens, Pownall wrote, adding that visitors should be sure to walk past the easy-to-miss gray curtain into the second room, where a film by Hsu Che-yu (許哲瑜) is being played.

"The work lays animation over real life footage to tell the story of two events that happened in the artist's hometown through his brother's reaction to them; one an incident where teenagers murdered each other, the other a severed female head being found in the river," Pownall noted.

"Drawing on the practice of animating recent news events and posting them online that is widespread in the Taiwanese media, the artist combines the memory of the forensic illustrator tasked with drawing the severed head with that of his brother," Pownall said.

Curator of the Taiwan pavilion Su Cheng-pu (蘇承璞) told CNA on Thursday that the installations echo the theme of the London Design Biennale, which is "Emotional States," and manifest a tendency in Asian society to show emotions by suppressing them.

The new media artists have depicted different emotions from various perspectives, from macroscopic and microscopic observation to explicitness and implicitness, Su said.

Meanwhile, Wu, an assistant professor of visual communication design at Ling Tung University in Taichung, said it was the first time he had created a work with three screens, which he titled "The noise project of scenic landscape in Taiwan."

He said the installation depicts his observation of how Taiwan culture, the habits of Taiwanese individuals, and the political and economic development of the country have impacted the environment over the years.

He used lights to convey emotions and reflect the theme of the London exhibition, Wu added.

The second edition of the London Design Biennale is being held Sept. 4-23 at Somerset House with entries from 43 countries, cities, areas and special programs.

Biennale chief executive Sumantro Ghose said many of the entries this year speak of cultural identification and a sense of belonging.

(By Tai Ya-chen and Elizabeth Hsu)
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