A Maiden’s Prayer

The MA program in Critical and Curatorial Studies in Contemporary Art (CCSCA) is delighted to announce the student-curated exhibition, A Maiden’s Prayer, taking place at the NTUE Art Gallery from November 10 until December 2, 2018. A Maiden’s Prayer features the work of four Taiwanese artists, Yao Jui-Chung, Lee Ming-Hsueh, Yeh Wei-Li, and Chen Bo-Zheng. Artists will offer three works of installation, performance, and photography as points of contemplation around the theme of trash. The title of the exhibition takes its name from the song played by garbage trucks during trash collection times in Taiwan.

Trash is one of the most constitutive yet unaddressed facets of everyday life. By drawing our attention to what we deem to be rubbish—the objects laying forgotten in bins, abandoned in landfills, or floating en masse atop oceans—the exhibition seeks to draw from artistic practice in order to piece together an aesthetics of trash. Each work in the exhibition will propose answers to the questions of how, where, and why we decide to dispose of objects, and what these decisions say about the logic of trash. In doing so, the works expose some of the gaps in our understanding of the nature of objects. 

Selections from Yao Jui-Chung’s project, LSD (Lost Society Document), photographically profile facilities dedicated to making trash disappear, as well as what happens when those facilities themselves become obsolete. Lee Ming Hsueh’s Trash Can, Rubbish Being then attempts to pinpoint the boundary marking an object’s passage into obsolescence, bringing into question what exactly constitutes trash. Finally, Yeh Wei-Li and Chen Bo-Zheng’s Antiquity-Like Rubbish Research and Development Syndicate probes the limits of this boundary, and by recuperating discarded objects questions whether or not the passage into trash-hood is absolute, and if it can be reversed. 

Following the exhibition’s opening, artist Yao Jui-Chung will host an all-day bus tour around some of the abandoned facilities profiled in his work. Please see the exhibition’s Facebook page for more details. 

This exhibition is organized by Shrimp Chips, an international group of seven scholars and friends studying under the Critical and Curatorial Studies in Contemporary Art program at National Taipei University of Education. This MA course is an intensive, two-year international program taught in English with emphasis on both art criticism and curatorial studies, providing students with the opportunity to familiarize themselves with discourse in contemporary art from various vantage points across the globe, and especially the Asia Pacific region. The Fall 2019 application period is from February 1 to April 30, 2019.