Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei

Massive waves and undercurrents of the #MeToo movement in Taiwan have gifted us valuable lessons. After half a year of preparation and production, the exhibition Interested Persons responds to the lessons by viewing every single individual as an “interested person.” This is not only because nobody is an outsider regarding social events but also because we all live in a network of relations, making everyone “a person of interest.” Drawing inspiration from the legal sense of the term, the exhibition intends to call out to all participants who have feelings about the issue and to engage in the aesthetic, the “interest in disinterestedness.” Comprising three topics, namely, “Exploring,” “Responding,” and “Restoring,” the exhibition dives into bodily and affective nuances to discern and answer to the inequality of power.

The works of “Exploring” take the audience to explore their bodies and feelings, construct a sense of autonomy, and identify the oppression of power and its traces. At the entrance, Hong Jun-Yuan’s piece Conciliation offers group portraits of interested persons. The Team of “A Letter to Daughter” and Kao Jun-Honn collaborate to tease out the history of the #MeToo Movement and offer a method of navigating the related discourses. Val Lee’s work It Must Be Nice to Disappear, to Have a Vanishing Act; to Always Be Looking Forward, and Never Looking Back portrays the extreme misogyny under the U.S.-Mexico geopolitical situation. Going up to the second floor, Yu Yen-Fang’s Body Descriptions draws from the #MeToo experiences taking place around her in the dance field and concentrates on bodily perception, describing the infiltration of power in between. Tseng Jing-Wen’s Fluid Exploration is a reflexive portrayal of the interaction between power and feelings.

The works of “Responding” offer safe spaces that enable participants to simulate and experiment with possible responses and perceive their effects. Ni Xiang’s piece The Shutdown uniquely prioritizes humor and temporarily “pauses” all those “entitled” people and things. Walking Grass Agriculture’s Grinding But Not Complying does not attempt to resolve opposition but turn unfamiliar words and sentences into important others. Through art/playing games, TransA PLAY’s Self Wonderland (Feat. AMUSE Art Design LTD.) provides the audience with a simulation exercise comprising multiple scenarios in life.

The works of “Restoring” look for ways to heal, train, and support oneself or each other to fine-tune the condition of our bodies, minds, and the environment in general. In the exhibition galleries, the organic installation of the work Your Intimate Tree Friends by Tsou Shin-Ning and Kao Jun-Honn invites visitors to find partners to be near trees to let go of their ego and anthropocentrism. The work leads the audience to Study of the Everydayness Cinema, a cinematic and theatrical space co-created by Women’s Self-Representatives + Liao Chien-Chung. Here, the audience undergoes a process of re-exploration that visualizes everyday force fields, from coming up with ideas of the space’s construction, later viewing films, and discussing the viewings to being here to see and to be seen. Wu Yu-Hsuan’s A Salon of Film and Poetry is a direct encounter with films and poetry, as well as a gesture that dissolves the power of speech, allowing the restoration of the self and each other. Furry Body Clues, a performance co-produced by Lihan.umaw + Temu.masin, collides the body with gender to train our restorative ability through constant destruction and construction. Li Tzi-Mei’s Consciousness and Listening - the Net of Collective Sound Journey starts with conscious listening, letting your sounds come out, and arrives at forming a collective voice. The work aims to foster inner reconnections while forming an empowering net of collective sound. Misako Ichimura’s "Fear, unleash": A Talk on Homeless Women's Artistic Action & Puppet-Making Workshop explores explicit and implicit violence that exists across different social strata, attempting to destabilize the rigid boundary between the private and public spheres through embodying fear by “none-ness.”

Through this exhibition, we learn to cherish the opportunities to re-read ourselves and our society, thus finding ways to empathize with all interested persons.