The Potential of Exhibitions to Reveal the Entangled History: A Discussion on the Value of Research-Based Exhibition

 

The National Culture and Arts Foundation (NCAF) launched the Production Grants to Independent Curators in Visual Arts (PGICVA) in 2004, and additionally established the International Residential Research and Exhibition Plans in 2012 to encourage international partnerships. These plans are designed as two categories: the residential research in phase I and exhibition and exchange plans in phase II. Partner spaces for international arts residencies in 2012 included the Tokyo Wonder Site in Tokyo and 1a Space in Hong Kong, while applicants from 2013 onwards have been required to look for and contact the organizations in charge of arts residencies on their own. The current system has been implemented from 2016 onwards—the applicants can apply for two phases or for exhibition plans only. Under this structure, exhibitions are the main part of curatorial projects to be subsidized and scrutinized, and there is a subordinate relationship between research and exhibition, with research being perceived as merely a means to provide material for exhibitions. This article emphasizes the equal importance of “research”〔1〕and “exhibition”. Research is a key contributor to the success of an exhibition, but it also takes on a unique life of its own and can be expanded upon or advanced through different methods.

This article will mainly discuss four different curatorial projects, namely, Discordant Harmony (2013-2018〔2〕), Post Ecolonialism (2013-2017), Moving and Migration - Stories From A Place To Other (2016-2019) and Topography of Mirror Cities (2015-2021). Research played an important role in phase I of these projects, when multiple locations across different countries were visited for investigation. Phase II adopted a unique curatorial structure—a network-like series of connections across different disciplines, organizations, and cultures was created by combining research with exhibition. Likewise, by focusing on the concepts of borders, movement, migration, dispersal, and crossover, these four curatorial projects attempted to unravel a complexly intertwined history, or explore the core factors which have led to today's convoluted situation. This article explores the questions of how the residential research carried out in phase I can support the exhibition produced in phase II, and how research outcomes can be converted into practical exhibition material. When focusing on the shared history of a specific region, how does the early research stage and the exhibition and exchange interconnect different locations, organizations, and resources? Can an exhibition unravel the entangled, deep histories of the region?

Discordant Harmony: Revealing Similarities and Differences in Northeast Asia

The Discordant Harmony exhibition was a three-year cross-border collaborative project〔3〕initiated by Goethe-Institut locations in East Asia. This project was jointly produced by Korean curator Sunjung Kim and the Art Sonje Center in Seoul; Japanese curator Yukie Kamiya and the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art; Taiwanese curator Chien-Hung Huang and the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts; and Chinese curator Carol Yinghua Lu and the Inside-Out Art Museum〔4〕.

After discussions between the four curators, the contentious, provoking concept of "disharmony" was chosen as a starting point for the project. The intention was to present a discussion on the historical development and relationships of neighboring countries in Asia, focusing in particular on the ideological breakdowns caused by the end of the Cold War, to serve as a foundation for understanding the tensions and power struggles between East Asian countries. Discordant Harmony first opened in early 2015 at Seoul's Art Sonje Center and focused on exploring the start of the Cold War. In late 2015, it was held at the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, with the 70-year anniversary of the end of World War II as its sub-theme. In 2016, the exhibition moved to Taipei's Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts and centered on how individuals respond to the larger environment amid changing circumstances. The exhibition's last stop was Beijing's Inside-Out Art Museum in 2017, where it chiefly dealt with experimental performances of artists during the 80s and 90s. This plan placed the historical context, social conditions, and creative output of the four regions against an interconnected background, prompting mutual familiarization and discussion.

These four different places in Northeast Asia have some shared historical experiences, but are still nevertheless very different from each other. On a practical level, the main challenge was how to present these four different cultures in the form of a touring exhibition. Sunjung Kim, the plan's lead curator, stated the following in the curatorial statement for the exhibition's Taipei stop: "This exhibition was planned with the idea of a 'moving exhibit' in mind, one which would tour across different cities in Asia. ..., we hoped to create an exhibition which could be openly assembled during this movement, with exhibition content changing from site to site to reflect the unique local characteristics of each city" (Chu Teh-I, 2017). The guiding principle behind this plan was for the four curators to collectively discuss and select or replace exhibition pieces. Each local curator would lead the process of coming up with a list of artists whose works would be exhibited or from whom new works would be commissioned in order to reflect the unique characteristics of each place. The local host organization would assume half of the exhibition production expenses, while the other half would be covered by the Goethe-Institut's exhibition budget〔5〕.

In 2013, Chien-Hung Huang applied with NCAF for phase I international residential research with his Nymphaea Pool: Re-naissance of Asias and received a NT$160,000 grant. He visualized the current state of Asia as a lotus pond in full bloom, with the mud at the bottom of the pond serving as a common foundation for its different regions. This foundation contains influences from Buddhism, Han Chinese culture, immigration, and the Cold War, all of which intersect and intermix to determine the current appearance of the lotus pond as viewed from the surface. In 2014, he applied for a phase II NCAF grant and received NT$3.5 million in funding, which covered part of the expenses for the exhibition Discordant Harmonony held at the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts. On one hand, the NCAF grants helped actualize this entire project. On the other, by taking advantage of the Goethe-Institut's large-scale Northeast Asian project, the NCAF grants enabled Taiwan to connect with other arts organizations and curators in the region to jointly re-examine the forms in which the complex and intertwined relationships in Asia appear today.

The Discordant Harmony exhibition was co-curated by Korean curator Sunjung Kim, Japanese curator Yukie Kamiya, Taiwanese curator Chien-Hung Huang and Chinese curator Carol Yinghua Lu. The third exhibition of Discordant Harmony takes place in Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts

Discordant Harmony not only connected four different regions, organizations, and curators, forming a Northeast Asian network, but also made prominent contributions to the creation of new knowledge. At the beginning of the project, the curators individually interviewed important thinkers, academics, historians, and artists based in the Northeast Asian region〔6〕. This was equivalent to standing on the shoulders of these giants in the East Asian intellectual community and gaining an understanding of the discussions and changes which have taken place in East Asia across the last two to three decades: These interviews provided a framework for learning more about Asia and also served to support the exhibition, progressing from questions on what Asia is to how we can get to the bottom of what Asia is. The four curators produced research and writing on the four main themes of the four exhibitions prior to their opening, ultimately creating 16 essays and four publications. These essays not only presented the individual conditions of each place, but also allowed for cross-comparison that revealed differences and similarities across Northeast Asia.

This cross-border collaboration project used exhibitions as a platform for breaking down the distinction between different academic fields and areas of research, thereby enabling more flexible cross-border comparisons on different themes. Existing knowledge on these themes was evaluated and corrected throughout the actual organization of the exhibitions. In addition, the early experimental research conducted through radical criticism of art pieces or by using metaphorical and fictional representations to unlock one's imagination opened new pathways for academic research to advance. At the same time, each curator individually developed interest in exhibition history, art history, and the relationship between art and society, boosting artistic research on the Northeast Asian region and encouraging creation and practice by artists.

Topography of Mirror Cities: How Southeast Asian Cities Act as Mirrors for Each Other

Different from how Discordant Harmony utilized the project framework originally developed by the Goethe-Institut, Topography of Mirror Cities〔7〕was a cross-national curatorial project which curator Sandy Hsiu-Chih Lo independently submitted to NCAF. This project would run from 2015 to 2021 and involved curators from six different cities: Mahbubur Rahman from Dhaka, Jiandyin (a duo formed by Jiradej and Pornpilai Meemalai) from Bangkok, Manray Hsu from Taipei, Ade Darmawan from Jakarta, Vuth Lyno and Pen Sereypagna from Phnom Penh, and Lian Heng Yeoh from Kuala Lumpur, along with the arts venues which worked in collaboration with these curators.

This project was based on Sandy Hsiu-Chih Lo's more than 10-year-long practical experience with "curating topography" (or "topographic curating"), as well as her lengthy efforts to understand Southeast Asia and build up a network of connections in its arts world. Her plan was to combine different places in the project, exploring the importance of meeting in a real, physical location. By looking for like-minded partners who are also curators that have made the necessary research and observations on their own cities, and working together with local arts organizations which these curators have had experience collaborating with, Sandy Hsiu-Chih Lo presented a series of exhibitions which pondered over the cities they were based in—how these Southeast Asian cities largely modeled their construction development on European and American cities in the pursuit of economic development, leading to rapid changes in the city landscape and loss of many unique local characteristics. In this project, NCAF grants played a similar role to the funding provided by the Goethe-Institut, creating a region-based project that allowed the six local exhibitions to observe, learn from, and share with each other. The local curators could also individually apply for funding from their own countries or cities, allowing each local exhibition to receive more resources and support.

The six exhibitions of this project were, respectively, Moving Objects (Dhaka, 2018), Bangkok Layers (Bangkok, 2018), Herbal Urbanism (Taipei, 2018), KOTA.EDU (Jakarta, 2018), Currents (Phnom Penh, 2019), and History, Community and Identity (Kuala Lumpur, 2021). Each of these exhibitions began by attempting to present the unique features of each city and the current issues it faces, such as by digging out a city's history layer by layer, putting on exhibitions in public spaces to reflect on the changes experienced by the city, and considering how cultural heritage should be preserved in the face of urban development. Apart from producing these exhibitions, the project also involved numerous live performances, workshops, film screenings, colloquiums, and publications. Events for the Kuala Lumpur exhibition—the last stop of the project—were carried out online due to the impact of the pandemic. For each of the six exhibitions, one or two Taiwanese artists would take up residence in the exhibition city for one month, allowing them to actually experience the local environment, interact with local artists, and integrate themselves into the local lifestyle. They would create artworks during this time, which would be displayed at the city's exhibition. At the same time, these six exhibitions would allow artists from each city to intersect, with the hope that these exchanges, interactions, and interweaving experiences would shape changes to local conditions through art exhibits.

Topography of Mirror Cities (2016 PGICVA-funded exhibition), chief curated by Sandy Hsiu-Chih Lo, the photo shows the exhibition scene of KOTA.EDU (Jakarta, 2018)

These six cities, six curatorial teams, six exhibitions, and participating artists served as parallel mirrors, allowing them to both look inwards at themselves and outwards at each other. They observed "the other" from their own perspectives and gained an understanding of themselves by seeing reactions of "the other". Under this curatorial structure, the most crucial task was contacting the most suitable curators and partner institutions. Especially in Southeast Asia, there are relatively more artist-run spaces or artist collectives, such as Jakarta's Gudskul (Good School) and Kuala Lumpur's Lostgens, with deep local roots and a keen awareness of arts and urban issues. The overall project allowed each of these groups to come together for discussion, motivating and stimulating each other through the sense of competition stirred up by the groups comparing themselves to one another. A concluding online forum was held in October of 2021, where each of the participating curators expressed their belief that such collaborative activities should continue to be implemented. As the host for this event, I also brought up the idea that such "South–South cooperation" was precisely the point of this cross-border project. By laterally linking together different cities, artist-run spaces, and artists and putting together artworks, exhibitions, performances, and discussions, we can bring into relief the issues faced by each other. A crisis faced by one party might serve as a warning for another, while problem-solving methods adopted elsewhere might be used as reference by a different party, with everyone involved becoming mirrors reflecting each other.

Post Ecolonialism: Connecting Taiwan and France by Using Plant Migration Across Countries as Metaphor

The Post Ecolonialism Project was proposed by academic and curator Hung-Yi Chen. It linked Taiwan and France, interconnecting completely different locations such as alternative spaces, gardens, arts museums, and local communities to create a cross-border, cross-cultural, and cross-organizational research-based exhibition and art action.

This project was based on Chen's long-term participation in tree planting and one particular occasion. One time, he took French curator Alice Schÿler Mallet on a hiking trip to Taiwan's Alishan (or Ali Mountain), where they discovered that the Chinese hydrangeas in bloom, a species native to Taiwan, were actually a familiar sight in Mallet's yard back in her hometown, alongside other plants. The migration of this native Taiwanese plant to Normandy in France and how it put down roots there were the main questions addressed by this exhibition. This project asked: "How should we view these plants which were collected and brought to other countries for the sake of imperialism-influenced research or curiosity, but have nevertheless flourished to this day?"

This three-year project〔8〕was what is referred to by Chen as a knowledge-based research project. It involved field surveys, interviews, and various exhibitions across different regions. At the same time, local tree-planting programs and other community activities were implemented. The series of exhibitions and performances included: Post Ecolonialism Project: Land to Trees, Water to Streams - Join and take action!, held at Tainan's Howl Art Space, where orange jasmine saplings were distributed to visitors for them to plant; Regards croisés, Paysages Taiwanais, held at the Bois des Moutiers and Shamrock gardens in the commune of Varengeville in Normandy, France, which sought to create an image of the natural environment of Taiwan where native Taiwanese plants which had migrated to France were displayed; Post Ecolonialism Project, held at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, which presented a retrospection on the appearance of Taiwan's landscapes/paintings in the form of an exhibition; and Post-Ecolonialism Project - Practice Rooted in Communities, which was a long-term community collaboration with residents in Jiaxian District, Kaohsiung and Dongshi Township, Chiayi: this tree-planting program sought to "return land to trees", and was a response to the environmental and ecological issues facing Taiwan at the time〔9〕.

Phase I of the Post Ecolonialism Project saw visits to several prospective exhibition sites in France, including the historic industrial areas of Central-North France and the large artificial forests of the Pyrenees. However, as these sites were unable to meet all of the needed collaboration criteria, it was eventually decided for the exhibitions to be hosted at the Bois des Moutiers and Shamrock gardens in northern Normandy, the hometown of French curator Alice Schÿler Mallet. The living environments of these introduced plants were used as the exhibition venue—an image of the Taiwanese natural landscape and environment was recreated for these native Taiwanese plants which had migrated to France, resulting in a site-specific exhibition. These French exhibitions were the most challenging part of the project. The exhibitions took place in gardens staffed with professional botanists, but without any assistance from an arts professionals. The curatorial team and its artists were required to independently take care of each detail and solve any issues which came up in this unfamiliar foreign country. This is where practical difficulties lie when putting on an international exhibition.

Post Ecolonialism Project (2014 PGICVA-funded exhibition), curated by Hung-Yi Chen and exhibited at MoCA Taipei

This project advanced research on plants, imperialism, colonialism, and natural landscapes and also enabled outward connections to be made with international curators, artists, and researchers, with a massive human network behind each collaborator. The exhibition also prompted further research into colonial and post-colonial theories, starting with an examination of "the role which plants play in colonial rule under imperialism". This propounds the idea of plants as subjects for studying the colonial process and the action of "returning land to trees", that is, actual reforestation, as a response to the debate of "Ecolonialism/Colonialism". This positively impacted theoretical research, allowing us to look past our resentment towards colonial history and rigid opinions far-flung from core issues. Instead, studying how plants migrate and put down roots in other regions provided a new perspective on the world.

Curator Hung-Yi Chen wrote in his phase II exhibition proposal:

We visited several famous gardens where exotic (from an European perspective) plants are grown, with the initial attitude of seeking redress for past wrongs and pursuing justice. However, while we did witness the spoils that these "plunderers" had taken, what surprised us was that many of these stolen plants were thriving and flourishing in these gardens, without seeming at all upset about being so far away from home. After in-depth interviews, we found that many stolen plants had gone extinct in their native environments due to human development, yet were preserved and survive today in these gardens. What was initially a criminal act driven by greed had unexpectedly turned into a form of salvation today. Nevertheless, just because these actions unexpectedly saved these plants, this is still insufficient and should not be grounds for legitimizing the initial motives behind this theft. However, the original simple dichotomy which both colonial and post-colonial theories describe, painting one side as the victim and the other as the aggressor, should be given profound reconsideration.

These sorts of discoveries are precisely the strength of research-based exhibitions. By physically visiting, interviewing, investigating, and understanding these issues, new perspectives are born. On one hand, this allows us to break past the limitations of existing theory. On the other, by engaging in a different critical discourse, not only can research-based exhibitions make substantive contributions to academic research, but are also providing theoretical support to future exhibitions on related topics.

Moving and Migration - From A Place To Other

Moving and Migration - Stories from a Place to Other was proposed by curator Shang-Lin Wu in 2016, and was a Taiwan-Korea arts residency and exchange project similarly based on the perspective of “plants”. It involved collaborations between the National Museum of Prehistory, Taipei Botanical Garden, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, and the Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art in Korea—several organizations completely different from one another.

In phase I of the project, Shang-Lin Wu traveled to several locations in Europe for study. At the time, Europe was embroiled in the refugee crisis, deeply inspiring several migration museums and exhibitions, such as the Musée d'Art Contemporain du Val-de-Marne in the Greater Paris area: its Tous, des sang-meles ("All, mixed-bloods") exhibition presented the issues faced by each region in assimilating migrants of different cultures and ethnicities into society. Musée national de l'histoire de l'immigration mainly focused on the culture and stories of Italian immigrants to Paris. Switzerland's Museum der Kulturen Basel put on an exhibition of numerous valuable artifacts from the Austronesian peoples of the South Pacific region. This exhibition also explored the reasons why these groups migrated. Starting from a broad perspective, the exhibitions in these museums tell the actual stories of cross-regional migration. For phase II of the exhibition proposal, he decided to turn his attention to the neighboring Asian regions, focusing on movement and migration issues in East Asia〔10〕. This decision meant that phase I became an early research stage, where he collected information, visited locations, explored concepts, and refocused the plan.

For phase II, the three main exhibitions were produced: Wandering Seeds, Wandering Seeds - Taipei Botanical Garden Project and Moving and Migration: An International Contemporary Art Exchange Exhibition, along with a series of actions, arts residencies, workshops, and activities. Shang-Lin Wu, who is a trained artist, relied heavily on arts residencies as an approach—where one can directly face "the other"—to produce these exhibitions. This method allows artists from around the world to remove themselves from their own existing circumstances and spend a relatively long period of time understanding a different country, and building relationships with the people and the places there.

Moving and Migration - Stories from a Place to Other (2017 PGICVA-funded exhibition) curated by Shang-Lin Wu, along with a series of actions, arts residencies, workshops, and activities

The first Wandering Seeds exhibition was a collaboration with Chi-Shan Chang, curator of the National Museum of Prehistory. The research team conducted a long-term observation of the geographical relationship between barkcloth and the Pacific's paper mulberry tree. A discussion on the prehistoric history and culture of the Austronesian peoples was presented by focusing on the paper mulberry trees scattered across the islands of Taiwan and the Pacific. This exhibition was an opportunity for artists from both within and outside of Taiwan to take up arts residencies in Taitung, immerse themselves in the area, and understand the migration of the local ethnic groups there through workshops. They examined the movement and migration routes taken by the Austronesian peoples by comparing the migration of plants to that of humans. This exhibition was special in that it allowed for a dialog to take place between contemporary art and artifacts from the collections of an anthropology museum, displaying both simultaneously and serving as an example of inter-disciplinary collaboration.

One of the artists participating in the Wandering Seeds exhibition happened to work as gardener at the Taipei Botanical Garden, which led to the production of the second exhibition, Wandering Seeds – Exhibition & Projects in Taipei Botanical Garden. This project used the botanical garden as its venue, in direct response to the idea that the exhibition should be organized from the perspective of a plant. The project started with Indonesian artists taking up residence, then artworks were created on-site and live performances, workshops, guided tours, culinary exchanges, tea ceremonies, and night-time video projections were held at the Botanical Garden, combining contemporary artistic creation with the unique characteristics of such site.

The third exhibition, Moving and Migration - Stories from a Place to Other, was conceived as an international exchange project between the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts and Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art in Korea. The exhibition was jointly curated by Shang-Lin Wu and Yoonseo Kim, curator of the Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art, and featured works from 22 Taiwanese and Korean artists. It focused on three main themes: "Do Not Forget: Forgotten History", "Where?: Cities/Movement/Borders", and "Wandering: Wandering Seeds" This public museum-level exhibition could be seen as the sum of all previous actions, projects, exhibitions, and performances and shifted its focus from the movement and migration of plants to those of humans, cities, countries, and history, leading to a richer discussion on these issues.

This series of researches, exhibitions and events involved not only cross-border, inter-disciplinary and cross-organizational collaboration, but also used different perspectives to present unfamiliar matters, some of which had never even been previously seen or heard of. At the same time, they served as a response to the social and environmental issues currently facing various regions today. In my opinion, the most inspiring part of this series was how it was not only jointly produced by Taiwanese and Korean museums, but also involved the Museum of Prehistory, which focuses on anthropology and archeology, and the Botanical Garden, with its specialization in botany. The sharing of ideas, joint production, and joint creation of works between these radically diverse institutions set a new model for cooperation between different museums In Taiwan. Likewise, by having researchers from different professional fields interact and exchange ideas with contemporary artists, existing knowledge of each field could be reconsidered, gaps in knowledge which had been overlooked discovered, and areas of inquiry which had stagnated due to rigid ideology reinvigorated. Both parties benefit by looking at and seeking to understand" the other", which also favors future development of a locality.

Moving and Migration - Stories from a Place to Other (2017 PGICVA-funded exhibition), the first Wandering Seeds exhibition was co-curated by  Shang-Lin Wu and Chi-Shan Chang, on display at National Museum of Prehistory

The Potential of Exhibitions to Present Entangled Relationships

The several aforementioned cases illustrate how phase I residential research can not only serve as advance preparation for exhibitions, but also improves the professional quality of exhibition production by using research to shape the core concepts and content of exhibitions. In phase II, the exhibitions themselves can become a temporary structure which builds upon the lost and fragmented pieces of history in different regions thanks to solid background research. On this platform, exhibitions, performances, discourses, and documents and information illustrate previously unknown pieces of intertwined history and complicated circumstances.

In terms of exhibition content, Discordant Harmony exhibited materials which revealed the complex, entangled conditions of present-day Northeast Asia, both shared and individual; Topography of Mirror Cities applied curatorial practices based on localities to portray the similar problems faced by different Southeast Asian cities during the course of urban development; Post Ecolonialism Project used the cross-border migration of plants to criticize the limitations of post-colonial theories; and Moving and Migration - Stories From A Place To Other used the transplantation of plants to describe how people and objects move, interact, and meet. These exhibitions shed light on facets to these issues which we did not previously know existed, showing the difficulty involved in understanding these entangled relationships and leading to a deeper understanding of these issues.

In terms of curatorial structure, Discordant Harmony was built upon the existing framework of a large-scale, cross-border collaboration project; Topography of Mirror Cities was based on the curator's network of human connections and understanding of different local conditions, built up over a long period of time; the Post Ecolonialism Project was born out of Hung-Yi Chen's long-term tree-planting work and ended with community efforts to "return land to trees"; and Moving and Migration - Stories From A Place To Other used arts residencies as method and created a model for cooperation between organizations with different specialties. All of these exhibitions relied on the NCAF curatorial project grant mechanisms to carry out preliminary research and build their foundations, unearthing new topics or proposing their own discourses based on this research. The results were then presented through exhibitions in a comprehensive and multi-faceted manner.

Uncertainties of Cross-Boundary Studies—Suggestions for NCAF

These four curators shared their personal experiences from the phase I residential research and phase II exhibition and exchange and proposed some suggestions with regard to these mechanisms. The first issue is the timeline. Chien-Hung Huang believes that the one-year period for residential research currently provided for by the mechanism is sufficient for implementing pre-determined plans. For example, for the first International Residential Research and Exhibition Exchange Plan in 2012, grant recipients could immediately begin an arts residency with local support from the Tokyo Wonder Site and Hong Kong's 1a Space, since the NCAF had already coordinated details with these organizations. However, from 2013 onwards, it became more difficult to do so as curators were required to independently arrange arts residencies with foreign organizations. This meant that curators often had to rely on their pre-existing connections, such as Sandy Hsiu-Chih Lo's previous long-term connections with other curators in Southeast Asia, Hung-Yi Chen's old acquaintance with a French curator, or Shang-Lin Wu's previous working relationships in Korea which he established during a previous program. Without previous working experience or connections as a foundation, it would be relatively difficult to confirm the feasibility of a plan in a short period of time. This is especially true for pioneering projects which start from scratch: these require more time, effort, and resources in order to arrive at, explore, become familiar with, and understand an issue, not to mention building relationships. Only after doing so can the possibility of future collaborations be discussed. Thus, more patience, more time, and a loosening of administrative procedures are required for more uncertain pioneering plans which explore cross-boundary collaborations. This would allow NCAF grants to better support arts residencies, surveys, research, project proposals, and actual exhibitions in all aspects.

Internationally speaking, art projects involving large-scale, cross-border, inter-disciplinary, and cross-organizational collaboration require at least three to five years of preparation time. Based on this model, it is recommended that the time provided for the two phases—residential research and exhibition and exchange—be extended, and for other methods to be used to temporarily present existing research results. These methods can include research publications, colloquiums, workshops, or a planned series of lectures, in line with the ideas of a pre-exhibition or para-curatorial practice, which emphasize the process instead of results. For her suggestion, Sandy Hsiu-Chih Lo proposed in her interview that a second application should be allowed for previous topics. This would help knowledge of localities and arts to accumulate, as well as provide more time to build social connections. A second project on the same topic can also build upon previously-conducted research, using this existing research as a foundation for plans on an even larger scale. Alternatively, Chien-Hung Huang believes that "current NCAF curatorial projects are too focused on passive waiting and lack direct action taking". Specifically, different projects could be integrated with each other, or cooperation could be sought with other existing international exhibition plans, in order to boost the influence and visibility of Taiwanese curators and artists internationally.

Additionally, each of the curators interviewed for this article all mentioned the importance of research, yet at the moment, Taiwan does not provide grants to support artistic research. For example, the Ministry of Culture barely offers grants for activities which fall under "research"; and grants from the Ministry of Science and Technology are only awarded to faculty from academic institutions, specifically those whose scholarly papers have been published in the past. Said ministry also often adopts a skeptical and exclusionary attitude towards any research not part of an established academic field or which has not been clearly defined. Fortunately, NCAF has in recent years established project grants to support "research" activities, such as the Writing Taiwan and Writing Phenomena: Visual Arts Criticism. However, I believe that PGICVA can also potentially support artistic research.

Since PGICVA was established in 2004 to support exhibition production and started encouraging international exchanges in 2012, I believe that now is the appropriate time for the program to move towards supporting more detailed, deeper research. A "research" category can be added to this grant mechanism, strengthening the ability to carry out research and boosting research quality. This suggestion is echoed by what Chien-Hung Huang mentioned in his interview: Discourse based on research is extremely important, and is critical for Taiwanese artists to gain greater internationally visibility. Hung-Yi Chen also affirms the value of research-based exhibitions and believes that such exhibitions are not merely one-time proposals, but will continue to ferment, develop, and expand in scope. In fact, his current Provincial Highway 17 Project is a continuation of Post Ecolonialism Project, showing how producing an exhibition is like planting a tree: Trees will grow over time, becoming a forest and forming an entire habitat.

I believe that the value of a research-based exhibition lies in its ability to embody the relationship between practice and theory: while it is based on and utilizes current theories, new, alternative knowledge can be created by practically applying these theories, leading to a cycle where theory supports practice and practice puts theory to the test. Through the free imagination and creativity of artists, exhibitions can allow seemingly unrelated narratives to be combined, intersect, and connect, deriving new significance. This is the discourse which research-based exhibitions yields during the course of research. This discourse materializes difficult-to-describe, complex, and intertwined situations; these "difficult-to-describe" situations are something that is likely beyond the reach of or neglected by academic research. Additionally, these hidden or obvious, large or small pieces of information unearthed during both the early research phase and during the course of the exhibition can become the starting point for future artistic creation, research, and curatorship. As suggested by scholar Irit Rogoff, "it is not that the curatorial needs bolstering by theory, philosophy, or history—but rather that these arenas could greatly benefit from the modes of assemblage that make up the curatorial at its best, when it is attempting to enact the event of knowledge rather than to illustrate those knowledges" (Rogoff, 2014:10-15). In conclusion, a research-based exhibition founded on an artistic perspective can be thought of as a process of overcoming many thorny obstacles, cutting a small path which advances into the unknown through an intersecting, convoluted, and obscure reality.

References

Wang, Jo-Hsuan (Ed.). (2019). Post Ecolonialism Project. Tainan: Howl Art Space.
Wu, Hui-Fang & Wu, Shang-Lin (Eds.). (2020). Moving and Migration - Stories From A Place To Other Kaohsiung: Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts
Chu, Teh-I (Ed.). (2017). Discordant Harmony: Critical Reflection on the Imagination of Asia. Taipei: Taipei National University of the Arts
Irit Rogoff. (2014). "Ever-Expanding Fields". Lu, Yinghua (Ed.). Sites of Construction: Exhibitions and the Making of Recent Art History in Asia, special issue from the Asia Art Archive - Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, 13(1):10-15.

Notes 

1: The term "research" has two different meanings in this article. The first is research on a specific topic, where the results are presented in writing. The other refers to the research conducted in preparation for an exhibition, where the research makes up the central content for the exhibition. The results of this research are mainly presented through the exhibition itself.
Special thanks go to interviewees Chien-Hung Huang, Yen-Hsiang Fang, Hung-Yi Chen, Shang-Lin Wu, and Sandy Hsiu-Chih Lo for their help.
Chien-Hung Huang interview, 10:00-11:00, April 5, 2021, Artco De Café Chang'an Store.
Hung-Yi Chen interview, 14:00-15:00, April 10, 2021, A Loving Cafe, Shilin.
Yen-Hsiang Fang interview, 17:00-18:00, April 24, 2021, pon ding.
Shang-Lin Wu interview, 15:00-16:00, April 25, 2021, Starbucks, MRT Hongshulin Station.
Sandy Hsiu-Chih Lo interview, 14:00-15:00, June 28, 2021, video call via Google Meet.
2: The dates for the aforementioned exhibitions start in the year when respective applications were submitted and end in the year during which the exhibitions were closed.
3: Goethe-Institut's original idea started from a universalist perspective with the concept of "Great Unity", and curators from Germany, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and China were invited to take part in the project. In the fierce discussions which followed, the characteristics of the East-Asian region became increasingly prominent in the project. The director of the Kunstmuseum Bonn decided to back out from the project, so it became focused solely on the Northeast-Asian region.
4: Sunjung Kim is the chair of the Art Sonje Center and has also previously served as president of the Gwangju Biennale Foundation (2017-2021). Yukie Kamiya was the director of the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art when this project was executed and is currently the director for the Japan Society New York Gallery. Chien-Hung Huang is an associate professor at the Taipei National University of the Arts and, from 2019 onwards, has served as the director of the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts. Carol Yinghua Lu was the art director for the OCAT Shenzhen (2012-2015) and is currently the director of the Beijing Inside-Out Art Museum.
5: Chien-Hung Huang estimates that the total funds provided by the Goethe-Institut for the project totaled around NT$50 to 60 million (excluding exhibition production expenses for each place). Differences between accounting systems across Asia and limits on annual expenses mean that it would not be feasible for domestic organizations in each country to directly carry out long-term, cross-border collaborations. This project was only able to continue mainly due to the financial support from the Goethe-Institut.
6: Those interviewed included Chinese academics Hui Wang, The Prospect of Asia as a Trans-National Society, and Wei Wang, Asia as the Possibility of the Exchange of Experiences and Practices, Not as a Locality; Taiwanese artist Chieh-Jen Chen, Taking Equality as a Solution: A Political Story from My Life, and Taiwanese academic Kuang-Hsing Chen, Asia as a Method; Japanese critic Inuhiko Yomota, Melodramatic Imagination: Border-Crossings in Cinema in East Asia, and director Toshiki Okada, Plays with the Body as Local Medium in Asia; and Korean artist Chan Kyong Park, Liberate East Asia from the Common Perception of 'East Asia', and academic Seung Yul Oh, Perspectives on Asia : An Economic Approach.
Interview Website https://www.goethe.de/ins/kr/seo/prj/har/itv/cnindex.htm
7: In 2015, Sandy Hsiu-Chih Lo applied for phase I residential research with Curating Topography: Art Curating and Practical Space and received a grant of NT$340,000. In 2016, she applied for a phase II exhibition grant and received NT$4 million in funding.
8: In 2013, Hung-Yi Chen applied for phase I residential research for the Post Ecolonialism Project and was awarded NT$270,000. In 2014 he applied for a phase II exhibition grant for the same project and was awarded NT$3.5 million in funding.
9: I presented the entirety of this project in detail in the article The Debate of Ecolonialism/ Colonialism: A Discussion on Curatorial Issues in the Post Ecolonialism Project, along with a critique of the potential risks which this project had. This article is included in the catalog of Post Ecolonialism Project.
10: In 2016, Shang-Lin Wu applied for phase I residential research and was awarded NT$170,000 in funding. Apart from visiting various regions of Europe for investigation, he also visited Seoul and Gyeonggi-do in Korea. Furthermore, he visited Indonesia for investigation under the Museum of Prehistory's project. At the same time, he also benefited from 2014 curatorial project The Rivers ‐ Asian Residency Project Artlink by NCAF, allowing him to gain an understanding on Japan and Korea. In addition, Shang-Lin Wu's wife is Korean, and he considers both Taiwan and Korea as his home. He applied for a phase II exhibition project in 2017 and was awarded NT$4 million.