Arts Archive

By design: will expo help New Taipei City emerge from the smog?

The following article appeared in the October issue of Taiwan Business TOPICS, the magazine of the American Chamber of Commerce. Design is not the first thing most people would associate with New Taipei City. Some of the districts in this special municipality, which was formed in 2010 from the contiguous townships and cities surrounding Taipei, […]
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Homeward bound: The remarkable career of Ho Te-lai

The following article appeared in today’s Taipei Times. This piece was very personal to me as it is about my children’s great-great-granduncle – a painter who has only really started to gain the recognition he deserves (at least in Taiwan) over the last 30 years. Many hours of research went into this over a course of […]
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Taiwan’s stand-up scene: a laughing matter

The following article appeared in the July issue of Taiwan Business TOPICS, the magazine of the American Chamber of Commerce in Taiwan. Twenty years ago, live stand-up comedy was a rarity in Taiwan. Now, thanks to the efforts of a committed core of performers, things have taken off – though not necessarily in a direction […]
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Droppin’ hip-hop knowledge, Taiwan-style (‘Renegade Rhymes’ review for Taipei Times)

The following review appeared in today’s Taipei Times. Confession: Despite being a diehard fan of golden age hip-hop and having had the privilege to interview some stalwarts of that era, including Public Enemy, Ice T and DJ Premier, during my early years in Taiwan, my grasp of Taiwanese rap music is feeble. MC Hot Dog, […]
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Taiwan’s Ukrainian community shows a little goes a long way

The following article appeared in today’s Taipei Times: Ukrainians are nothing if not determined. The Russian invasion of their country and atrocities against its population has made that clear. Taiwan’s small Ukrainian community and its supporters have also demonstrated their doggedness this week through a campaign to have a performance by a pro-Putin opera singer […]
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Taiwan in the frame

Among the proselytizers, merchants and adventurers from Europe who inserted themselves into Taiwan’s early modern history, George Psalmanazar is notorious. Centuries before the Chinese Communist Party began faking news about Taiwan, this (most likely) French-born hoaxer, who claimed to be a Formosan and invented his own language to prove it, was regaling eighteenth century London […]
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All the World’s a Stage: Shakesepeare and Taiwan

The following book review appeared in today’s Taipei Times: A few years ago, I attended a Shakespeare workshop in Taipei. As someone who only began to appreciate the Bard outside the classroom, I was excited. Several Taiwanese were participating in the four-week course, and I was curious to see what they would make of it. […]
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Hidden in plain sight: the extradordinary work of Hsieh Tong-liang (Part 2)

Part 2 of a feature for Guan Xi Media: With tea and preliminary chit-chat done, Diane suggests we start our tour in the large exhibition space next door. Split into sections showcasing the various series of works that have occupied periods of Hsieh’s life spanning, in some cases, a single year, in others, decades, the […]
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Taiwan’s ‘return-to-reality’ trailblazers (Taipei Times review of ‘Politics and Cultural Nativism in 1970s Taiwan’)

The following book review appeared in today’s Taipei Times: Discussions of identity in Taiwan are seldom clearcut. Viewed through the prism of the country’s democratization, things can be even more opaque. For those with rudimentary knowledge of these issues, this short book is no primer; indeed, even the initiated may find it challenging. But those […]
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Hidden in plain sight: The extraordinary work of Hsieh Tong-liang (Part 1)

The follow article appeared in Guanxi Magazine: For years I’d been intrigued by the peculiar house on Chang’an Rd in Taichung’s Taiping District. As with most of my best discoveries in Taiwan, I’d stumbled upon it – in this case almost literally, when a scuffed pass had sent a football trickling down a sloping, paved […]
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