About X-site

Program X-site (2014-) of Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM) launches an open call for installation projects based on the outdoor plaza of the museum. From multiple perspectives, such as architectural construction, contemporary art, environmental research and public participation, this program as an integrated experimentation explores the spirit of publicness shaped by temporary installations. It encourages as well cross-disciplinary, diverse dialogues and participation for creation, which stimulates our re-imagination of the spatial relationship with the non-identified plaza.

The 10th open call of Program X-site 2023 focuses on the creative projects of cross-disciplinary form, realized in the temporary architectural proposals relating to spatial and environmental experiments, which foregrounds the breakthroughs and practices in structural construction, media application and aesthetic expression. After a two-stage evaluation, the project Find Your Way Out, entitled after the team’s name, distinguishes itself as the laureate of the year. The team Find Your Way Out unites sound artist WANG Chung-Kun, French art group hellobastworkshop, space designer LIU Jia-Hao and new media designer KUO Chung-Fu. With various experiences in dynamic art, sound or lighting devices, the team members embody a creative fusion of architecture and technology with contemporary art. 

About the work

Text / YEH Hsing-Jou

Under the attack of COVID-19 in recent years, the trend of “global village” rising from the end of the last century has imposed itself on everyone in a more direct and powerful manner regardless of nationality and hierarchy, tying to tie up the fate of all mankind more comprehensively. So far, social distancing in response to “pandemic prevention” has repeatedly become the highest principle of life. Fighting against the virus’ non-stop mutation, we find ourselves constantly trapped in an infinite loop, with the “post-pandemic era” stage morphing into “long-COVID”. In any case, the two stages as such seem to be a spectrum’s two ends and neither is the ultimate solution to the pandemic. At the moment, life in coexistence with the virus is floating at the critical point-between (re)opening and restriction, like alternate dawn light and starless night abruptly emerging like phantoms. Either alone or together traversing along the long and difficult road ahead, our body is still the only bargaining chip in the games to come.

In response to the subject of our bodies besieged by the COVID-19, Find Your Way Out presents itself, on the plaza in front of TFAM, as a giant black building in the spirit of minimalism: a length up to 30 meters extending straight from the side of Zhongshan North Rd. to the plaza center and a height towering up to 8 meters, coupled with a narrow corridor of merely 2 meters wide. Each visitor is invited to walk upon the alternative passage to the museum square, i.e., upon the minimalist narrow corridor to refine not only a body perception unique to each individual but a mixed corporal sensation, constantly interacting with the outside world－the square’s current climate, light/shade, wind, sound and crowd…. Movements forwards and backwards, arrivals and departures of others: each influence from time to time the gentle rise and fall of the ground as well as the horizon of vision above the corridor in the installation. What’s striking the ears is the mighty noise like waves flowing from the ground, which is actually a harmonious echo of Find Your Way Out to the experience of each participant. Pressing against a body’s two flanks, the black mesh is flicking as the sight wanders, and beyond lies the square’s landscape, like a “flashing screen”, difficult to be delineated. Put differently, the black mesh, in/outside, serves metaphorically as multiple alternatives, mixed with avatars and security disciplines of social distancing between human beings and the world outside in the pandemic era. Those on the journey of Find Your Way Out either travel forward, linger, or repeatedly pace back and forth along the only path of one’s own, and only those with a firm attitude find the way out to come back again to the distinguishable and uncertain daily life.