Podcast #11

In this podcast, you’ll hear artist Su Hui-Yu in conversation with curator, writer and researcher Julian Ross on the evening of Su’s residency event at 1646.

In recent years, Su has employed the approach of “re-shooting” as a method to create new works. This method includes shooting new films based on old ones, and as a result allows the artist to review and reflect on history. Through this method, Su revisits past, unfinished, tabooed, and misunderstood figures, events, and things, addressing the connection between mass media, pop culture, memories of martial law, and the post-colonial history of Taiwan and East Asia.

Exemplary of this was his first solo exhibition in The Netherlands, The Cinema of Séance, that took place at 1646 in 2021. This exhibition engaged with taboos of the past and present while exploring the mechanism of oppression and liberation tied to Taiwanese cultural values. Su examined the borders of bodies, sexuality, along with the entanglement of socio-political conduct and prohibition. The artist paved the way for the possibility of reviewing and supplementing history with his reflective practice, ”re-shooting” of early Taiwanese experimental films.

For the event, 1646 invited Julian, who is doing an ongoing research on Japanese expanded cinema. Julian’s main interests lie with artists’ moving image, asian cinema, film installation and performance, video art, and world cinema, connecting to Su’s practice and thematic.