Big Picture: The Sound of Ideology with Taiwanese Artist Ting-Jung Chen

The works of Taiwanese artist Ting-Jung Chen revolve around the relation between sound and control. She samples and rearranges the recordings of victory speeches from World War II into new sound pieces; she alters songs in composition and text that were used as sonic warfare by the Taiwanese against China during the 1970s-1990s and builds large sound installations to play them on; and she re-orchestrates political songs that reflect on collective memory and identity.

The philosopher turned artist was born in Taipei in the 1980s and now works and lives in Taipei and Vienna. Ting-Jung Chen’s art practice deals with question of language and historiography, often with a performative approach. Her work explores sound, its tonality, and how it affects people and their (political) emotions. By reproducing acoustics and artifacts of the culture industry she creates re-telling stories and experiences that speak of the evocative power of sound in the socio-political tension between groups led by different ideologies.

Join us for a conversation with Ting-Jung Chen on her work and experience fragments of her sound pieces.

Ting-Jung Chen is currently an Award Fellow with the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program. She obtained the Kunsthalle Wien Prize 2018, and she is the recipient of the MAK-Schindlers-Scholarship 2019 from MAK Museum Vienna. She has been awarded various prizes, scholarships and fellowships, including the 2022 Promotion Award of Fine Arts, City of Vienna, Austria; Visual Arts Grant 2020 from Federal Chancellery of Austria; the Visual Arts Grant 2020 from Taiwan National Culture and Arts Foundation; the “MIT” Fellowship 2020 from the Ministry of Culture of Taiwan; the Koganecho residency fellowship 2017; the Judges Award of the Taipei Arts Awards 2015; the Deutschlandstipendium 2015; the Karl H. Ditz Scholarship 2014, and several other fellowships and project funding fellowships. Her works have been shown in numerous venues internationally, including Belvedere 21erHaus, Vienna, Kunsthalle Wien, Kunsthaus Hamburg, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei Fine Art Museum, Parallel Vienna, Koganecho Bazaar 2017, Yokohama, Japan, MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Los Angeles, and 18 Street Art Center, Santa Monica, U.S. among many others.

www.info-tingjungchen.com

About Big Picture

Big Picture is a public event series where we celebrate art in all its forms and shapes: Be it food, movies, museums, or literature. We invite artists, curators, and experts to talk about their practices and how these can help shed light on the world we live in. These talks are designed to further the dialogue and exchange across disciplines and regions and to travel beyond the events.

The Big Picture event series is made possible with the support of Bergos and hosted in cooperation with Karl der Grosse.

This Big Picture event is hosted in cooperation with sinokultur.