Period
2010
Proposed by
LU Pei-Yi
Location
Taipei
About the project
When the new semester began in February 2010, Yao Jui-Chung, presiding over the first classes of the fine arts departments at Taipei National University of the Arts and the National Taiwan Normal University, asked the students about their expectations for this class: did they wish to follow the normal class format, where the teacher would teach related knowledge, or would they like to use the class to do a “mosquito hall” (white elephant) investigation? The fifty-some students at the two universities decided to make a Taiwan-wide “mosquito hall” survey as the assignment for this semester. Through half a year of investigation across the island, the students identified one hundred and forty-seven “mosquito hall” locations, compiling the 684-page book, which outlines an absurd situation in Taiwanese society, embodying the fact that “misguided policy is worse than corruption.” It was widely reported in the media and attracted a high level of attention from the government. Through eight years of homework, the students’ art action was like a stone thrown into a pond, sending ripples outwards, shaking a presumably calm society and forcing them to face reality. The significance and value of this “participation” lie in the fact that it is both a collective action by Yao Jui-Chung and his students(LSD) and in that it used artistic methods to hold up a social issue to scrutiny and engage the awareness of the people in regards to that issue.
External links
About the artist
Yao Jui-Chung was born in 1969. Lives and works in Taipei. He graduated from The Taipei National University of the Arts. His works have been widely exhibited in Venice Biennale, Yokohama Triennale, APT6, Shanghai Biennale, Shenzhen Sculpture Biennale, Venice Architecture Biennale, Media City Seoul Biennale, Asia Triennial Manchester, Sydney Biennale. Yao is the winner of The Multitude Art Prize (Hong Kong, 2013), Asia Pacific Art Prize (Singapore, 2014) & Taishin Arts Award (Taiwan, 2018).
