ODE TO WALKS OF LIFE Print

B. 1986, Taiwan. Lives and works in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Chang’s works have won first prize of the Kaohsiung Awards (2019), were the finalist of Taoyuan International Art Award (2021, pending) and selected in Taipei Art Awards (2020), have been presented in the National Art Exhibition (2017), and are part of the collection in the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, and Art Bank Taiwan. His works have been exhibited across Taiwan as well as China, Singapore, Austria, Korea, Nepal, Poland, and Finland. The artist has participated in artist residency programs in Taiwan, Korea, Nepal, and Finland, and took part in the post-earthquake reconstruction and art exchange program Solastalgia (2017) in Lalitpur, Nepal, and The Arctic Circle (2017) residency and expedition program in Svalbard, Norway. He participated in Mediations Biennale (2018) in Poznan, Poland, and was invited as independent scholar to present his study on Port of Kaohsiung at ICHSEA (International Conference on the History of Science in East Asia, 2019) together with exhibition in Natural History Museum of JBNU in Jeonju, Korea, and as Taiwanese artist representative to present his art projects in PORT JOURNEYS (2019), the international port city art annual. Chang has been long concerned about complex ethnic conflicts and land identity issues. His artworks are usually realized based on a core narrative text, in the form of digital video, installation, photography, painting and documents, etc. He also creates site-specific and pop-up works to reach local communities, together with workshops and activities. Chang was the co-founder of Waley Art, an alternative art space in western Taipei, and was actively involved in educational programs to promote art in the area, including community work and space revitalization. His recent works began with those rapid-changing environments like ship, island, ocean and port, investigation on those little-known or forgotten myths, history, events, anecdotes, personal and collective memories, etc., combined with the outcome of field research and process of collection, are interwoven and reinterpreted, thus to unveil the universal experiences of the tension between human, civilization and nature constantly shaping each other. He aims to regenerate multifaced thoughts on the reality and broader imagination for the future world through the slow process of reconstruction and recovery of the past in his art practice.