Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei

Taipei is a city of migrants.

In the 19^th century, a port was established in Taipei, and as the city started to develop, people of different backgrounds began to gather and make a living here. After the war, an influx of migrants retreated with the military to Taiwan from China; and from the 1960s onwards, urbanization created job opportunities and attracted young people from central and southern Taiwan to relocate to Taipei, where they took on construction jobs or large-scale infrastructure projects. Today, Taipei remains an attractive city to different communities of people.

The title of this exhibition, Transfer Station, holds a two-fold meaning: Transfer stations are public transportation interchanges, and each transfer represents a movement that’s driven by a specific objective. On the other hand, the same term used in Chinese to mean “transfer” can also mean “to change one’s destiny,” and it is a local folklore concept in Taiwan that advocates taking action and making changes to improve one’s destiny and fortune.

There’s only a 10-minute walk between the Taipei Transfer Station (Taipei Bus Station) and MoCA TAIPEI. People can get off at this station after a long journey and step foot into the heart of Taipei, where possibilities to make a better living are out there. However, economic changes and inequality have exacerbated the gap between the rich and the poor, and class mobility has stalled, so most people have not been able to obtain the good fortune that they have come to pursue. The city has not become the promised land for the underclass, but people are still here, struggling, taking root, and anticipating the arrival of the next opportunity.

Poor People’s Taipei: Transfer Station seeks to deconstruct the narratives of why people come to the city. Presented in three subcategories, the exhibition recounts people’s urban migration journeys, their urban encounters, and their subjective voices, allowing those who are depicted in the media and stereotyped by public opinion as “lazy” and “hopeless” to be seen by showing their diverse characteristics. Most of the artworks in the exhibition are co-created by those with lived experiences and artists. The identities of those individuals with experiences of poverty are intertwined with complex issues of gender, ethnicity, illness, and others, and the contributing artists also hold multiple identities; some have experienced being strangers in foreign places, and some have served as social workers. The sentiments involved with “migration” and “expectation” resonate with them all, and these are also issues that they are confronted with when living in a city.

Alliance of Wisdom from Actionists Refusing Exclusive Society is an alliance comprised of people with lived experiences of poverty, NGO workers, social workers, artists, and academic specialists. “Poor People’s Taipei” is organized by the group annually in October, which includes exhibitions, forums, and experience-based activities. The aim is to break the stigma put on marginalized groups and to also empower and encourage those with lived experiences to be present and share their experiences with others. Through engaging in in-depth interactions with others, a history that’s oriented around the subjectivity of the poor can be co-constructed.

Do You A Flavor is an advocate of urban poverty issues who also provides support to people who are homeless. Its members come from various backgrounds and are quite quirky; therefore, their perspectives and actions are often gentle but also subversive and playful. They are enthusiastic about placemaking and welcome people from different fields and professions to join them in their social practice. Everything they do originates from the simple belief that opportunities are always available to catch someone in their vulnerable moments.

Yu-Hsuan Liu graduated from the Department of Material Arts and Design at the Tainan National University of the Arts. She currently works as a freelancer and is an artist who specializes in drawing. Liu grew up in a humid urban city and has the special ability to incorporate the sensitive and fragile emotions between groups and individuals into her art. Do You A Flavor has invited her to be the exhibition designer for this project.

Yi-Hsuan Liu, Yi-Chi Li, and Yun-Ting Li work at Do You A Flavor, where their focus is on advocacy. Equipped with design skills, research capabilities, and desires to pursue the unknown, they have long been involved in collective actions with homeless people whom they have gotten to know and also other marginalized groups. These endeavors have grown and led to the development of a trajectory that doesn’t seem to fit well into mainstream society but is, nevertheless, splendidly extraordinary.

THE WORLD Association has long been a companion to families of indigenous peoples in the urban areas of Sanxia and Yingge, including those in riverside tribal villages, public housing for indigenous peoples, and other nearby communities. Many different profound life circumstances take place in these communities that are difficult to describe in words, and THE WORLD has initiated many actions here, including empowering young boxers, reviving tribal cultures, documenting the memories of first-generation elders, and, more often than not, the effort exerted is aimed at achieving a good life together for everyone.

Tso-Hsin Tang holds a degree in sociology, and she started using her camera while taking part in social movements, where she pays attention to the struggles that individuals go through in society. She’s reluctant to refer to what she does as fieldwork and simply enjoys spending time in those communities and tribal villages. Someone from one of the tribes once told her that taking photographs would suck her soul away, which is why she tries to conduct collective creative endeavors to allow the souls to return to their rightful places. She currently works as a freelance photographer.

A social worker and also an artist, Yu-Yi Chang holds an MFA from the Taipei National University of the Arts and specializes in project-based art. Sensitive to the interaction between spaces and human beings in states of urban development, Chang’s artworks often deal with the uncomfortable experiences of marginalized groups, and through actions or installations she initiates and creates, she disrupts social daily routines and seeks to evoke the general public to reflect and think.

Ro-Hsuan Chen is an artist who works with photography and video. She holds a BFA from the Department of Applied Arts at Fu Jen Catholic University, with a major in metalsmithing, and an MFA in Designed Objects from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, USA.

Through the questions and answers asked and received from the subjects she captures, Chen seeks to deconstruct events and things, where she looks for subtle details and anomalies. Her work focuses on the changes in society and contemporary issues and constructs narratives through mundane but nuanced and genuine documentaries of life. When moments are made monumental, glimmers of light can be seen and resonate like poetic verses, leading to the formation of a collective consciousness.

Taiwan Community Practice Association is located on the south side of Taipei’s Wanhua District, and as a community base, the association started by offering companionship to children who were on the streets and roaming in parks and also offered support to parents who were busy making ends meet and stressed-out grandparents who were raising their grandchildren. Its objective is for each family and each community to live an ordinary life that’s fulfilling and decent.

Miao-Chen Huang is a ceramic artist who uses art to pay attention to people’s emotions and to interact with others. She employs the notable features of ceramics to showcase the intricacies of interpersonal relationships, and by tugging and pulling the clay into interesting shapes and forms or manipulating the medium to create balance or disorder, she uses her hands to transform intangible emotions into tangible imprints.

Pu Chang is a social worker and also a career counselor. In the past decade, he has profoundly accompanied many individuals and families through different life challenges. Through the act of blending essential oils, Chang hopes to offer a sense of companionship to our society and help others learn how to be kind and gentle to themselves.

Taiwan Dream City Building Association is in the Bopiliao Historic Block of Wanhua District, Taipei. The association has been running a creative group and art workshops for many years, where they accompany financially disadvantaged elders and socially marginalized groups to use art as a form of self-therapy, where they can form new narratives and reconnect with other people.