TFAM Net.Open│The Deep Sea as Archive: A Conversation between Chia-Wei Hsu and Haeju Kim
 
Date：Saturday, August 30, 2025 | 14:00–15:40
Venue：TFAM Library and Archive 

Moderator：Nicole WANG | Independent researcher
Panelists：
Haeju KIM | Senior Curator, Singapore Art Museum
Chia-Wei HSU | Artist
 
► Mandarin & English with Simultaneous Interpretation
► Borrow device at registration with valid ID

In Chia-Wei Hsu’s work, the moving image is never an isolated record. It is an active site where reality, history, and the senses pull upon one another—and a narrative method that breathes poetry into history. From the ruins of an old church on Heping Island to the colonial networks of Southeast Asia, he has collaborated with archaeologists, sound designers, composers, and others, translating the tools of archaeological science into materials for narration and perception. The Sound of Sinking continues along this path, plunging into the deep waters of the Taiwan Strait—where three shipwrecks from different eras and wars, shaped over time by currents, sedimentation, and ecology, continue to generate unfinished histories. In this work, sound serves as a medium for sensing and recording underwater worlds; collected and transformed, it becomes an index capable of traversing both time and matter.

In the exhibition, The Sound of Sinking surfaces this “deep-sea archive” and unfolds it into a sensory field through which visitors may pass. As they move, pause, and encounter one another, they become part of the work itself, their presence participating in and bearing witness to the interplay of sound, image, and history in space. Moderated by Nicole Wang, this conversation brings together artist Chia-Wei Hsu and curator Haeju Kim. Kim has long examined the structural roles of image and sound within exhibitions, as well as the viewing experiences in which audiences are drawn into them. From curatorial and theoretical perspectives, she will respond to the creative trajectory of The Sound of Sinking, and will, together with Chia-Wei Hsu, further explore the multiple roles of sound as a material of perception and narration, how exhibition layout shapes the act of viewing, and the imaginative possibilities opened by the deep sea as a site for historical production and archival formation.

Moderator/ Nicole WANG
Nicole Wang is a researcher and curator whose work focuses on art archives, historical writing, and cross-disciplinary collaboration. She holds an MA in Cultural Studies from Goldsmiths, University of London, and a PhD in Anthropology from Durham University. She had served as a researcher at Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab before joining Asia Art Archive as a project researcher, where she led the “Independent Art Spaces of Taiwan” project (2022–2025), advancing the collection, organisation, and interpretation of materials in contemporary art history. Her practice brings together art, history, and social issues, with a particular interest in relational approaches to research and curating.

Panelists/
Haeju KIM
Haeju Kim is a Senior Curator and Head of Residencies at Singapore Art Museum. Haeju has experience curating numerous contemporary art exhibitions and projects across various disciplines, with an emphasis on the body, time, and memory. Her work also engages with topics of ecological perspectives, migration, locality, and planetary connections. Most recently She co-curated Asia Art Biennial 2024: How to hold your breadth, in Taichung, Taiwan and curated Seeing Forest (2024), which represented the Singapore Pavilion at the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. She was the Artistic Director for Busan Biennale 2022: We, on the Rising Wave, and previously was the Deputy Director at Art Sonje Center 2017-2021. 

Chia-Wei HSU
Graduated from Le Fresnoy - Studio national des arts contemporains, France, Chia-Wei HSU’s work as an artist, filmmaker, and curator merges the language of film and contemporary art and unearths the complex mechanisms behind the production of images. Through his artistic practice, Hsu weaves connections between humans, materials, and places that have been overlooked or omitted in conventional historical narratives. 

Hsu has had solo exhibitions such as Silicon Serenade (2024) and A Performance in the Church at Liang Gallery (2021; Taipei, Taiwan), Tung Chung Art Award: Giant Panda, Deer, Malayan Tapir and East India Company at Museum of NTUE (2019; Taiwan), Black and White – Malayan Tapir at ISCP (2018; New York, the United States), MAM Screen 009: Hsu Chia-Wei at Mori Art Museum (2018; Tokyo, Japan). Industrial Research Institute of Taiwan Governor-General’s Office at Liang Gallery (2017; Taipei, Taiwan), Huai Mo Village at Hong-Gah Museum (2016; Taipei, Taiwan) that was recognised by the Annual Grand Prize of the 15th Taishin Arts Award and Position 2 at Van Abbemuseum, (2015; Eindhoven, Netherlands). He was the finalist in the HUGO BOSS ASIA ART Award in 2013, and won the Annual Grand Prize at the 15th Taishin Arts Award in 2017. In 2024, he won the 10th Eye Art & Film Prize.

Registration Method: Online Registration

• Online registration opens on Monday, August 18 at 10:00 a.m.
• Upon successful registration, the system will automatically send a confirmation email to your registered address. All official event notifications will be communicated via email.
• Each email account is limited to registering one participant.
• If you are unable to attend, please cancel your registration online in advance so that the spot may be released to other participants.

• Check-in is available from 1:30 p.m. to 1:55 p.m. on the event day. Registration will close promptly at 1:56 p.m., after which spots will be released to waitlisted participants. Please arrive on time at the B1 Library and Archives Center – Registration Desk. Late arrivals will not be accommodated.
• Please present a valid photo ID (such as a National ID Card, National Health Insurance Card, or driver’s license) to borrow an interpretation device.

• On the event day, the registration desk will open for waitlist sign-up from 1:30 p.m. to 1:55 p.m.
• Available spots will be offered to waitlisted participants in order, depending on the attendance of online registrants.

Notes:

• This event is free of charge; however, a museum admission ticket is required. For ticketing details and information on eligible free admission, please refer to the museum’s ticketing page.
• Image and Video Consent: The event will be recorded in both photo and video format. Participation in this event constitutes consent to grant the museum the non-exclusive, royalty-free right to use such materials for educational, promotional, and research purposes.
• In case of any changes to the event details, please refer to the latest announcements on the museum’s official website.