Chia-Wei Hsu (b. 1983)
About the artist
A graduated of Le Fresnoy, Studio national des arts contemporains in France, Chia-Wei Hsu stresses specifically on the actionability underneath image creation when it comes to the practice of art. Hsu connects the relationships of humans, materials, and places omitted in the narrative of the conventional history through establishing the incidents beyond the camera. Hsu has had solo exhibitions at MoNTUE, Taipei, Taiwan (2019), Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan (2018), Industrial Research Institute of Taiwan Governor-General’s Office at Liang Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan (2017), Huai Mo Village at Hong-Gah Museum, Taipei, Taiwan (2016) that was recognised by the Annual Grand Prize of the 15th Taishin Arts Award, Huai Mo Village Project at Art Basel, Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, Hong Kong, China (2016), and Position 2 at Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, the Netherlands (2015). He has participated in exhibitions at Eye Filmmuseum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands (2019), biennials at Shanghai, Gwangju, Busan and Sydney (2018), 2 or 3 Tigers at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany (2017), 2016 TAIPEI BIENNIAL – Gestures and Archives of the Present, Genealogies of the Future at Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, Taiwan (2016), HUGO BOSS ASIA ART at Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai, China (2013), The 55th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia: This is not a Taiwan Pavilion at Palazzo Ducale, Venice, Italy (2013), and Faux Amis / An Ephemeral Video Library at JEU DE PAUME, Paris, France (2010), Eye Art & Film Prize, Amsterdam Eye Filmmuseum, the Netherlands (2024). Through a myriad of audio-visual narratives, Chia-Wei Hsu pursues imaginative interrogations of cultural contact and colonisation in Asia, often amalgamating his primary narratives with non-human actors including technologies, animals, gods, environments, traditions, and material objects. These diverse subjects together result in a bumpy ontological bleed between them, forming the topography of a historical geography without a straightforward objective position. By reinterrogating what histories and relations coexist within a given locale, Hsu’s work manifests new imaginative potentialities for their revitalisation, an uncertain, profound terrain throughout his films and installations.
Work being shown at ATM
Name: Rubber Balls (2025)
Location: The Holden Gallery
Media: Five channel video (3’35”), natural rubber sheets
Description: The work is an archaeological investigation of Dutch colonialism in Indonesia, revealing how modernity, technology and the arts functioned as instruments of suppression. Enforced through systematic land appropriation, the rubber industry gave rise to a range of profound problems, including ecological crisis, social upheaval and inequality among local populations. Through employing AI and reworking archival materials from the Eye Filmmuseum as well as local folklore, the artist traces rubber as a speculative historical agent in the context of material culture.
