In Taiwan, a “wind and rain playground” typically refers to a partially indoor sports field that provides shelter from stormy weather. For this exhibition, the Taipei-based art project group "Bridge Hole" aims to create a space where creators can continue to develop their artistic practices beyond their academic training, while also facilitating a platform for community engagement and critical dialogue.
With a focus on the natural world, Bridge Hole showcased works by artists who explore and reflect on the relationship between art and nature. Through this exhibition, they hope to encourage a deeper understanding and appreciation of the environment and foster a greater sense of connectedness with the natural world.
Opening speech:
Thanks, everyone, for joining us after such a hustling and bustling day in Bergen. I heard so many galleries choose to have their opening this weekend, which makes me more grateful to you for coming to our event here.
The title of this exhibition is Lessons from the Playground, and if you read Chinese, the literary translation of the Chinese title is “A Playground with Wind and Rain”, which would usually describe Bergen pretty precisely, but not today. Today, the playground is breezy and sunny.
This exhibition is meant to be an extension of a year-long art project called Bridge Hole that took place under a highway bridge in Taipei. Once again, a group of idealistic curators and artists liberated artwork from the walls of the rich and the white cubes of peacocky galleries and museums and brought them down to a more overlooked space where muffled life stories nevertheless survive and thrive. You will hear more about the project from Jamie and Ping-Fan, the curator group Off-Site, who curated this under-bridge wonderland.
Newton once wrote: Men build too many walls and not enough bridges. BTW, it's the less-known Joseph Fort Newton, an American Baptist minister. Not the much more well-known Issac Newton, who was concerned more about abstract concepts.
Building more bridges between cultures and people is what we, with our cultural exchange project Northing, endeavour to achieve. The task is getting even more difficult but crucial after a historical pandemic again shattered the world to pieces.
With this exhibition, we hope to build a new bridge for the artists from Taiwan to our lovely local and international audience in Bergen.
Personally, I also feel that it’s such a blessing to have competent external curators who curated and installed the whole exhibition, while as the owner of the space, I could just concentrate on this opening speech.
Please let me present to you Jamie Chung and Ping-Fan Chiang, under the name Off-site from Taipei.
