Interweaving Travelers

The New Taipei City Art Museum launched the NTCAM On the Move in 2022, serving as a pilot project before its grand opening in 2025. Through physical mobility, interconnections, and conceptual interpretations, the initiative aims to open new perspectives, encounter others, and establish networks of relationships.

The inspiration behind the title of 2023 NTCAM On the Move Interweaving Travelers is derived from a Chinese idiom “You Ren Ru Zhi,” symbolizing the countless travelers as intricately woven pieces of brocade, layer upon layer. The exhibition’s concept expands upon this metaphor with the aim of exploring the interconnectivity and complexity of global mobility. Especially in the post-pandemic era, as people once again regain the ”freedom” to move, this exhibition, on the one hand, examines the co-constructive relationship between mobility and contemporary globalization, and, on the other hand, seeks to critically reexamine the radical essence of ”mobility,” exploring its potential to transcend national governance, geopolitical conflicts, and the influence of capitalist expansion.

In the process of globalization, with the advancement of aircraft, the internet, and mobile technology, people have experienced ”time-space compression” over the past thirty years. With the assistance of technology, they can achieve a significant and rapid level of mobility. In the past, we may have dreamt of visiting a place because of a postcard, but today, we heavily rely on media images, videos, and language narratives to form our motivation for movement. These visual elements, along with the text, are filled with various consumer markets and the ideologies of different national tourism brands, and they constitute people’s perception of the world. In this seemingly all-encompassing and boundless panoramic view, it is actually made up of simplified symbols and codes that obscure or weaken the visibility of certain paths. The so-called freedom of movement is, in reality, a matter of turning, observing, interacting with people, and consuming within the allowed boundaries, meaning our behavior is predicted and designed.

In such a state, is it still possible for us to rediscover the radical essence of movement? In such a state, is it still possible for us to rediscover the radical essence of movement? As Azuma Hiroki suggested, this large group of unconscious tourists, much like mail, follows the routes constructed by the state and consumer market and is distributed to various places. However, unexpected actions may occur due to various accidents, which he refers to as ”misdelivery.” Over time, these repeated misdeliveries may gradually lead to unexpected phenomena, giving tourists the opportunity to become ”travelers” who wander outside the preset framework.

The exhibition focuses on how the mobility of people and objects constructs social phenomena, organizes and coordinates social actions, and shapes spaces and places. The exhibition approaches its discussion from four perspectives, including ”tourists/wandering travelers as subjects,” ”ways of seeing and the construction of landscapes,” ”anecdotes and oddities,” and “relational spaces and communities.” Through the observation, narration, questioning, and construction of contexts in the artworks by the artists, the exhibition hopes to create moments of reflexivity for the viewers.

For more information, please visit the website.

Artist: Cheng Shang-Hsi, Gulnur Mukazhanova, HER Lab Space (Chen Yow-Ruu X Au Sow Yee), Hsieh Mu-Chi, Huang Hai-Hsin, Kato Tsubasa, Lee Kit, Luka Yuanyuan Yang, Thảo Nguyên Phan, Writing FACTory, Yee I-Lann

Curator: Hsieh Feng-Rong