Chen Chi-Hsiang - "Tainan. Dialogue" Invitation Card 2001-4.20-5.27 Tainan Cultural Foundation

Voyage of Consciousness - Photo Series No. 1 120x120cm 2000

Voyage of Consciousness - Photo Series No. 2 120x120cm 2000

Voyage of Consciousness - Photo Series No. 3 120x120cm 2000Voyage of Consciousness-Photo Series Part Three  120x120cm 2000

Voyage of Consciousness - Photo Series No. 4 120x120cm 2000Voyage of Consciousness-Photo Series Part Four 120x120cm 2000

Voyage of Consciousness - Photo Series No. 5 120x120cm 2000

Voyage of Consciousness - Photo Series No. 6 120x120cm 2000

Voyage of Consciousness - Photo Series No. 7 120x120cm 2000

Voyage of Consciousness - Photo Series No. 8 120x120cm 2000

Voyage of Consciousness - Photo Series No. 9 120x120cm 2000

Voyage of Consciousness - Photo Series No. 10 120x120cm 2000

Voyage of Consciousness - Photo Series No. 11 120x120cm 2000

Voyage of Consciousness - Photo Series No. 12 120x120cm 2000

Voyage of Consciousness - Photo Series No. 13 120x120cm 2000

Voyage of Consciousness - Photo Series No. 14 120x120cm 2000

Voyage of Consciousness - Photo Series No. 15 120x120cm 2000

Tainan South Gate Park - Under the Great Banyan Tree "Voyage of Consciousness" Over Six Hundred Colorful Ceramic Spoon Environmental Space Installation 2001

"Tainan - Dialogue" Solo Exhibition

Time: April 24 to May 27, 2001

Location: Tainan Cultural Foundation

Artist Chen Chi-Hsiang, who has lived in Paris, France for nearly twenty years, presents his solo exhibition "Tainan - Dialogue" in Tainan this year, following last year's exhibitions at Taipei Zhuwei Studio ("Rice's Shared Memory - Intuition and Imagination") and Chiayi Alternative Space Railway Warehouse ("Crossing the Horizon"). Clearly, while the Chiayi exhibition was about crossing horizons, the Tainan one engages in dialogue with the ancient city; both address the proposition of locality, grounding a sense of place and internalizing the field and state, highlighting regional spirit, and achieving dialogue and resonance with the local context.

Chen Chi-Hsiang is not only an art critic, contemporary art data expert, amateur horticulturist, and practitioner in other fields, but also a dedicated sculptural artist who often treats artistic creation as his backyard garden to cultivate and create. For decades, he has drawn from the local rice culture and spirit as the source of his artistic creation. From the shared memory of rice to the exploration of ontological consciousness, through the unique material transformation of "rice," Asia's most basic food, into visual forms and constructing another local concept and type, such as the "Voyage of Consciousness Series," which intends to reveal consciousness and spiritual states from matter, and the essence of existence. The "Tainan - Dialogue" metaphorically traces the cultural dialogue; "Tainan," the ancient capital of Taiwanese people, is a symbol of culture. Against its unique humanistic and cultural background, it performs a symbolic dialogue across time and space.

The "Tainan - Dialogue" solo exhibition specially features the "Voyage of Consciousness" photo series images. This series originates from the colorful ceramic spoon installation in the large-scale spatial installation exhibition "Rice's Shared Memory - Intuition and Imagination" at Zhuwei Studio. Extracted from quiet observation, the image data consists of colorful ceramic spoons filled with various types of rice, full of order, rhythm, and poetic imagery, like a dragon walking, seemingly floating and navigating in the vast ocean of consciousness, symbolizing crossing time and space. In front of the foundation, under the great banyan tree in South Gate Park, colorful ceramic spoons filled with various types of rice surround the tree, like the voyage of consciousness, continuously exploring the space-time of historical and cultural memory, aiming to awaken the shared consciousness of rice and the local dialogue of the ancient city. When the lights come on, these images are projected onto the ancient sites of the ancient city—such as the South Gate City Wall and the Japanese-style buildings of the Tainan Cultural Foundation—allowing contemporary art, stuck in its ways, to step out of the ivory tower, dramatically giving new life to the ancient sites, and providing the audience with a new perspective on civilizational heritage, especially the ancient capital of Tainan, prompting us to reflect on our culture in contemplation, thereby having the honor to dialogue and share with the people of the ancient city. April 2001, Tainan