Till We Have Faces—Creating Disturbances

TheCube Project Space is honored to present the exhibition Till We Have Faces: Creating Disturbances, scheduled to be on view from 19 August to 15 October 2017. This exhibition in itself represents the achievements of two projects, namely the thematic lecture series at the 2016 Praxis School and Till We Have Faces, both were led by Huang Sun-Quan, a renowned social activist and cultural researcher. Curated by Huang and Jesse Tseng, this exhibition features not only the video recordings and documents of social movements in Asia retrievable at the platform “Till We Have Faces: An Image Database of Social Movements in Asia” (http://multitude.asia), but also the works in diverse forms such as photography, documentary, dance and performance by Wang Yen-Cheng Chang Ching-Ju, Liang Ini, Chen Shing-Ying, Cheng Ming-Huei, and Lai Hsiao-Ying, all of whom were participants in the 2016 Praxis School.

Prior to this exhibition, the “Articulators Summit” as the initial achievement of the project Till We Have Faces was selected by the Power Station of Art (Shanghai) for its Emerging Curators Program and exhibited at the museum in the end of 2016. Till We Have Faces: Creating Disturbances can be construed as another landmark of the project.

Invited by TheCube Project Space, Huang Sun-Quan has taken the lead of the thematic lecture series since January 2016. Thematized and based on his long-term research and social practice, the lecture series made good use of the content on Multitude.asia and was delivered on a monthly basis, giving the participants a contextual and systematic understanding of contemporary social movements in Asia.

Drawing on the content of the twelve lectures delivered during 2016 and 2017, the exhibition is divided into two major parts. The first part consists of the incrementally completed documentaries and documents on Multitude.asia, and the second is the creative projects conceived and implemented by the participants in the 2016 Praxis School. Adopting “Creating Disturbances” as its theme, this exhibition aims at actively engaging in events and creating disturbances therein, expecting the seeds to sprout and thrive after falling on the fields. The participants who come from different social backgrounds formed an assemblage as complex and organic as the diverse multitudes. Within the time-span of a year, the members self-mobilized, gathered together, and even separated, but eventually presented their collaborative or independent projects that embodied the fusion of intellectual activities and collective creations.

*Initially sponsored by the Inter-Asia School, the project Till We Have Faces is now an independent social project coordinated by Huang Sun-Quan.

Huang Sun-Quan (Chief curator)

Huang Sun-Quan is an artivist engaging in architecture, media, social movements, and art. He is currently an assistant professor at the Graduate Institute of Interdisciplinary Art, National Kaohsiung Normal University, and a visiting professor at the School of Intermedia Art, China Academy of Art. His research interests include architecture and urbanism, culture and media, social mobilization, and interdisciplinary arts. He was a visiting fellow at the Lingnan University, Hong Kong (2004-2005) as well as the former editor-in-chief of POTS Weekly. In 1997, he organized the first anti-gentrification movement in Taiwan under the slogan “Against City Government’s Bulldozers.” He was also active in several social and media reform movements in Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Jesse Tseng (Co-curator)

Born in Taichung, Jesse Tseng works and lives in Taipei. He earned his MA from the National Kaohsiung Normal University. He participated in the filming of Fortunate My Ass: The Story of the Black Hand Nakasi—Workers’ Band, a documentary affiliated to the project Till We Have Faces. He also participated in the organization of several exhibitions including Migrant Workers in Taiwan—Exhibition of Labor (2011), Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture (2012), Suffocating: Hei Jin-Cheng x Ewam Lin Prison Documents Exhibition (2013), and U-topophila: Huang Sun-Quan Solo Exhibition (2014) at the Red Brick Art Museum, Beijing. He is currently an executive editor at The News Lens in charge of culture and art news. He also works as a cultural critic, writer and editor.