Chen I-Chun Solo Exhibition－Entering Sekaikei – Bokurano

Artist Chen I-Chun once again holds her new solo exhibition at Liang Gallery. The title of this exhibition is adapted from the phrase “sekai-kei” (lit. world-type) by the Japanese philosopher Hiroki Azuma (b. 1971). The term “sekai-kei” became popular in 2003 and there is no particular national and social setting. The protagonist is you or me (male or female), the focus of the story is on the world crisis and destruction.

Chen I-Chun is good at using video art, multi-media art, and painting in her artistic practice. In this exhibition, Chen interviewed young people from many different countries and asked them to use their mother tongue to ask via iPHONE: “Hey! SIRI, what is war?” As in Bokurano: Ours by Mohiro Kitoh (b. 1966), every youngster takes turn to decide who should enter the mecha suit to overcome inner hardships. In the artworks in this exhibition, young people who suffered emotional trauma talk about their distress and hope to be brave enough to face the difficulties they are experiencing. These hardships blur the boundaries between country and society, thus we can see a bigger world. The difference is that this is not a fictional story. Young people from different countries are telling us about the sorrows they had to bear when they were young. These narratives arise melancholy and disasters in every corner of our planet.

Different from the traditional linear viewing mode, Chen utilizes the screen as the carrier and the painting to combine the image and sound. The contents of the artworks can be viewed in interactive way, and will give the audience different media to explore the relationship between reality and virtual.

About artist:
Chen I-Chun was born in 1980 in Nantou, Taiwan. Chen is best known for her artistic practice in video art, experimental animation/video, interactive art, multi-media art, and painting. Her primary focus is on social issues and folk stories in industrious and marginalized areas, also among the lower middle class. Her video works were selected for inclusion in the Film Sector at Art Basel Hong Kong in 2018 and exhibited in the Arts Electronica Festival in Austria in 2017 and the Film Library at Art Basel Miami in 2015. Her works are in the collection of the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts.