Winners of the 23rd Taishin Arts Award

The Taishin Arts Award, a benchmark of excellence in Taiwan’s contemporary art that honors outstanding artistry, humanistic values, and the zeitgeist, announced the winners of its 23rd edition, selected from 15 shortlisted projects. The Visual Arts Award goes to NI Xiang’s Everyone came to see you—Ni Xiang Solo Exhibition; flowers bloom on the dead end x HSU Peng‘s Great-Grand Rat-Po-Tai (So Old) Is Sleeping Next To A Landscape Painting, Diligently & Stingily Snoring—But There Is No Landscape Painting! wins the Performing Arts Award, and the Grand Prize is awarded to Battle City: Finale by CHANG Li-Ren.

The final selection committee for this year was chaired by the esteemed U.S.-based art critic KAO Chien-Hui and comprised notable members, including art critic CHANG Yun-Ting, theatre critic CHOU, Katherine Hui-Ling and HSU, Walter Jen-Hao, French choreographer Mathilde Monnier, Korean artist Park Chan-kyong, and Singaporean curator TANG Fu Kuen. After three days of comprehensive discussions, the committee selected three award winners, which collectively amounted to a total of NT$3.5 million in prize money.

All three awarded projects draw from personal life histories and experiences to highlight broader societal issues, including long-term care and illness care, women’s situations in a patriarchal society, and personal defiance against authoritarianism, media violence, and existential challenges. By employing various media that blend reality with virtuality, these projects prompt viewers to engage in profound reflection.

The Visual Arts Award is awarded to Everyone came to see you—Ni Xiang Solo Exhibition. NI Xiang begins with personal experiences and uses large-scale installations and video works that may appear chaotic and whimsical at first glance to confront reality and address critical social issues, such as elder care, the experience of being a patient companion, and the distinction between life and death, immersing viewers in an idiosyncratic artistic appeal through his “hoarding aesthetics.” The jury gives the following comments “The project employs black humor to make a satirical and self-deprecating criticism of lived reality, society, and its institutions. The collage and assemblage of excessive objects as both material and symbol, which speak of the erosion of dreams and the state of powerlessness, are profoundly moving.”

The Performing Arts Award was presented to Great-Grand Rat-Po-Tai (So Old) Is Sleeping Next To A Landscape Painting, Diligently & Stingily Snoring——But There Is No Landscape Painting! Created by director-playwright HSU Peng, the production, which features flowers that bloom on the dead end, was staged in the century-old ancestral home of the Hsu family located in Guoling, Zhongli. It intricately weaves a magical realist narrative revolving around the lives of the women in the family. Hsu transforms mundane domestic trivialities and snippets into a richly layered theatrical text through “sui sui nian”, a recitation style based on murmuring, along with a meandering performative style, skillfully merging the surrounding environment with the narrative. Utilizing witty, sharp, and surreal imagination, the piece emerges as a critique of patriarchal norms articulated from a distinct perspective informed by female poetics.

The Grand Prize, which was announced last, was awarded to Battle City: Finale by CHANG Li-Ren. The project marks the end of a 14-year journey focused on battle narratives of resistance and defense. In 2024, the artist made a full debut at MoNTUE, showcasing all three episodes of the trilogy along with the figures, models, sets, and manuscripts from the production, quickly drawing the public’s attention. Using inexpensive materials and low-tech approaches, CHANG challenges the notion of how artists can persist, maintain autonomy, and uphold their ideals within the confines of societal norms and collective values. The jury committee states “Using “battle” as a metaphor, his work conveys individual resistance against global hegemonies, media violence, and existential conundrums, offering an allegorical reflection on the complexities of our shared realities.”

For comprehensive details on all shortlisted and winning projects, visit the dedicated webpage of the “23rd Taishin Arts Award” here.