• Private View：
  2016.03.22 Tue. (15:00-20:00)
  2016.03.23 Wed. (13:00-17:00)
• Vernissage：
  2016.03.23 Wed. (17:00-21:00)
• Public Days：
  2016.03.24 Thu. (13:00-21:00)
  2016.03.25 Fri. (13:00-20:00)
  2016.03.26 Sat. (11:00-18:00)
• Booth: 3D08 INSIGHTS
• Artist: Hsu Chia-Wei
• Venue: Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre

Huai Mo Village Project

Liang Gallery will present a solo show, Huai Mo Village Project, by artist Hsu Chia-Wei at Art Basel Hong Kong 2016, Insights Sector.

This project relates the stories of remnant Chinese troops on the border regions of Thailand and Myanmar (Burma) who withdrew to these areas after 1949. The troops face multiple cultural identities and the embarrassment of being of an unrecognized identity. People who live under the specter of history end up producing an ambiguity absent in ordinary people.

Huai Mo Village focuses on a story of a priest in Huai Mo Village in Chiang Mai, Thailand, who during the Cold War served as a confidential informant for the CIA. He is also the founder of a local orphanage that offers shelter to a great number of kids. Hsu invited the orphans to form a filming team and to help him to capture multiple narratives of the Cold War era.

For another video work, Ruins of the Intelligence Bureau, Hsu Chia-Wei invited veterans of the former Intelligence Bureau aged between 60 to 80 to participate in the filming of the video about personal memories, myths, and politics, which took place at the site of the Intelligence Bureau in Huai Mo Village. Hsu used the abandoned office of the demolished Intelligence Bureau as a set place and invited veterans to watch a traditional performance of Thai puppeteers.

Large-size installation Memorial Chamber of the Intelligence Bureau aims to construct a real museum of Intelligence Bureau, yet the museum will never be built in reality. Instead, the progress of the architectural plan becomes the artwork itself. Based on an anthropological approach, the artist works with specific communities of the exact locations where the incidents took place and develops a unique style of community art. Ultimately, the virtual museum is displayed as an installation.

Other exhibits include a series of tapestries, which were made by the artist and children together in the orphanage, and feature themes that originated from the old photographs of the Intelligence Bureau, the process of working with children, and the vision of the Museum of Intelligence Bureau.

Hsu Chia-Wei

• Currently, the artist participates in an artist residency program at Le Fresnoy Studio National Des Arts Contemporains in France.
• In 2016, selected for inclusion in the Insights Sector at Art Basel Hong Kong.
• In 2015, selected for “Positions #2” exhibition at Van Abbenmuseum in the Netherlands.
• In 2015, video work selected for inclusion in the Film Sector at Art Basel Hong Kong.
• In 2013, presented his works for the Taiwan Pavilion at Venice Biennale.
• In 2013, selected for “Hugo Boss Asia Art” exhibition at Rockbund Art Museum in Shanghai.
• In 2012, exhibited at Liverpool Biennial.
• In 2010, graduated form the Department of Fine Arts at the National Taiwan University of Arts
• In 1983, born in Taichung, Taiwan

The 23-year-old Liang Gallery was founded in 1993 by Yen-Liang Yu, who currently also is a Member of the Board of Directors of the Chen Cheng-po Cultural Foundation. Located in Taipei, the gallery is committed to promoting important Taiwanese artists of the early 20th century, and is devoted to organizing exhibitions of Asian contemporary art. Scholarly approach to art history and contemporary art exhibitions planning are a few of the main focuses of the gallery.