The Ministry of Education offers Taiwan Scholarship to outstanding Australian students who wish to enroll in a degree program (Bachelor, Master or PhD) in Taiwan. Education Division of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Australia is delighted to invite Miss Candice Xiaobing Jee to shed light on her study experience in Taiwan as a Taiwan Scholarship recipient.
Candice undertook her study in Taiwan wishing to deepen her knowledge of Chinese language and culture, which she was researching as a crucial part of her artistic work, exploring her own cultural heritage as an Australian-born Chinese-Malaysian. Before her study journey in Taiwan, Candice was trained in the field of visual arts at the Berlin University of the Arts in Germany, after her bachelor studies at Curtin University, Perth, Australia. Candice provided the following feedback about the Taiwan Scholarship Program:
My time so far spent in Taiwan through the Taiwan Scholarship has been a stunning year with vast input for my artistic development. In addition to the generous support from the Taiwan Scholarship to attend the Masters of Chinese Arts at the National Taiwan University of Arts, I was also successful in receiving the Ian Potter Cultural Trust Grant for my studies during second semester, to further grasp the possibilities I have studying in Taiwan.
Upon introduction to the Masters of Chinese Arts at NTUA, the Dean of our faculty informed us to treat Taipei as our campus for learning. Hence, my year so far spent here has been dense with diverse and unexpected encounters. Apart from classes in my chosen course discussing Taiwanese history, literature, and introductory courses to calligraphy, ceramics and Chinese painting, I have also built upon my studies by personally attending Mandarin Chinese language classes at the Mandarin Learning Centre at National Taipei Normal University, and an East Asian Art History course at National Taiwan University.
Outside of universities, surprising exhibition-making possibilities have presented themselves to me in Taipei. I have discovered a community of artists interested in engaging links between Taiwan with other cultures in the Pacific Ocean, for example Okinawa. As my art research thinks about exchanges and divergences in aesthetics and cultural identities, working with such people has been an interesting extension. I was invited by my colleague Yoshiko Machida to participate in her Coral Island Art Project, which took place both in Taipei and Ikei Island, Okinawa in June 2016. I was given the opportunity to create an art installation on Ikei Island over a period of ten days. In this time, I used current research about the Chinese garden as a potentially mutable artistic form, to create a temporary garden in an abandoned land on the main street of the island. This referenced the shared environment, histories and cultures that exist between Taiwan and Okinawa. Some web links from media covering Yoshiko’s project with my contribution include an exhibition video.
Following this, over the summer (July-September) I was invited to be an artist in the exhibition “森人Tree Tree Tree Person: Taroko Arts Residency Project”, curated by Cheng-Tao Chen. This exhibition connected the Taipei Contemporary Arts Centre (TCAC) exhibition site in Taipei, to the extremely remote Dali and Datong villages in the Taroko National Park. I met the curator-artist Cheng-Tao Chen by chance visiting a previous exhibition opening at the Taipei Contemporary Arts Centre, where he told me about his idea to create a very isolated residency in the mountains by the famous Taroko Gorge. His residency intends to generate new ideas about regarding interactions between nature and humans. Cheng-Tao introduced me to the location and the Taroko rattan-weaving artist Masaw Dumuen, which led to our co-operation for my project named “Garden Conservation”. This project was inspired by observing the flowers in the gardens of the Taroko tribe people in the mountain, which led to my questioning of what constitutes the idea of “original nature” in a national park. Departing again from the notion of the Chinese Garden, I grew plants in TCAC and helped cultivate a garden in Masaw Dumuen’s ancestral home in the National Park. At both sites, plants from different origins were acquired as “ready-made” sculptural objects, combined together with Masaw Dumuen’s basket works in installations and actions that think about the idea of cultural heterogeneity and change. (This included bringing a Japanese maple tree from the flower market in Taipei to the Masaw home in Taroko National Park, and planting it in a commissioned basket by artist Masaw Dumuen next to an indigenous Yellow Vine tree from the mountain).
The complexity and richness of participating in Cheng-Tao Chen’s project is hard to describe in few words. An interesting point is that learning Mandarin Chinese was imperative to communicate with the community of Taroko, and allowed me to learn more about another culture that exists within Taiwanese identity. A link to Taiwanese media coverage of the “森人Tree Tree Tree Person: Taroko Arts Residency Project” features an image of my work at the Taipei Contemporary Arts Centre.
Studying in Taiwan and these exhibition experiences have allowed me to come into contact with a variety of inspiring people within and from outside of the art community. I am looking forward to furthering and consolidating these experiences over this coming academic year. As expected, the study of language and culture is gradual, and I am continually feeling very fortunate to have a substantial period of time to explore ideas of cultural heritage as an Australian Chinese artist. Thanks again to the Taiwan Scholarship for giving me this ongoing challenging and fertile opportunity to be here.
Art Installation by Candice Xiaobing Jee, Coral Island Art Project in Taipei and Okinawa (photos provided by教育丸子Education One and Candice Xiaobing Jee)
