Wu Mali

旗津本事: 旗津的帝國滋味 (Cijin Pún-Su: Cijin’s Taste of Empires), 2022

Singapore Biennale 2022 Commission

旗津本事: 旗津的帝國滋味 (Cijin Pún-Sū: Cijin’s Taste of Empires) is a field study and performative project presented as a film. The project showcases the stories of Cijin residents who immigrated to the Cijin District over time and from different cities and countries. The Cijin District is a predominantly coastal district of Kaohsiung City in Taiwan and covers several islands including the Cijin island and the islands in the South China Sea. The stories of the residents are gathered through interviews, interpreted and then performed by Wu Mali’s graduate students at her Cijin Kitchen, a kitchen space of a former navy dormitory located in Cijin District of Kaohsiung City. Food is the central focus of the project, and through its preparation and consumption, these stories are embodied and shared. Community regeneration and cultural transmission are thus intertwined with artistic performance and social practice within the project.

BIO
Wu Mali (b. 1957) is a socially engaged Taiwanese curator, installation and conceptual artist. She is a professor at the Graduate Institute of Transdisciplinary Art at the National Kaohsiung Normal University (NKNU). Focusing on the quotidian act of food consumption, Wu utilises cooking, eating, tasting and sharing as heuristic tools to examine processes of social change brought about by colonialism, Cold War and globalisation. Her art has moved away from their origins in formal aesthetics, to look for connections between art and society. The artist treats her art-making process as a form of social critique, typically situating her work within existing social movements and collaborating with existing organisations. She currently lives and works in Kaohsiung.

RESOURCES

Educational Resource | Artist Folio



INFORMATION

• 旗津本事: 旗津的帝國滋味 (Cijin Pún-Su: Cijin’s Taste of Empires). 2022. Video, single channel, sound, 18 min.