Home / News / Mirage: Disused Public Property in Taiwan Talk & Screening / Photography Workshop Project collaboration with Lostgens’ Contemporary Art Space

Mirage: Disused Public Property in Taiwan Talk & Screening / Photography Workshop Project collaboration with Lostgens’ Contemporary Art Space


DURATION: 2017-08-12 ~ 2017-08-15
OPENING: 2017-08-12
VENUE: Lost generation Contemporary space
ADDRESS: 8c, Jin Panggong,
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Mirage : Disused Public Property
By Yao, Jui-Chung + Lost Society Document + Sandy Hsiu-chih Lo (Taiwan)
Photography Workshop Project collaboration with Lostgens’ Contemporary Art Space


When the new semester began in February 2010, Yao Jui-chung, presiding over the first classes of the fine arts departments at Taipei National University of the Arts and the National Taiwan Normal University, asked the students about their expectations for this class: did they wish to follow the normal class format, where the teacher would teach related knowledge, or would they like to use the class to do a “mosquito hall” investigation? The fifty-some students at the two universities decided to make a Taiwan-wide “mosquito hall” survey as the assignment for this semester.
Through half a year of investigation across the island, the students identified one hundred and forty seven “mosquito hall” locations, compiling the 684 page book Mirage – Disused Public Property in Taiwan, which outlines an absurd situation in Taiwanese society, embodying the fact that “misguided policy is worse than corruption.” Meanwhile, this artistic action took part in the 2010 Taipei Biennial Movement Project. It was widely reported in the media, and attracted a high level of attention from the government, even prompting a call from the Vice President and a visit from the Premier of the Executive Yuan, who advised all relevant departments to engage in an inspection of said facilities, ordering them to revive all mosquito halls within a year or consider demolishing them.
Through two years of homework, the students’ art action was like a stone thrown into a pond, sending ripples outwards, shaking a presumably calm society and forcing them to face reality. The significance and value of this “participation” lie in the fact that it is both a collective action by Yao Jui-chung and his students, and in that it used artistic methods to hold up a social issue to scrutiny and engage the awareness of the people in regards to that issue.