First launched in 2013, ESLITE GALLERY’s “Young Artists Cross-Strait Exchange Exhibition Program” is pleased to present “The Lost Garden” (Taipei) curated by Nobuo TAKAMORI and “The Sociology of Oneself” (Beijing) curated by ZHU Zhu in July and August, 2014 respectively.

Curated by Nobuo TAKAMORI, “The Lost Garden” will show works by artists LEE Jo Mei, LIN Jin-Da, Shu-Kai LIN, Po-I CHEN, and Wei-Li YEH. “Shaped by rapid historical and environmental transformation, Taiwan is an island inhabited by survivors from different periods and cultural backgrounds,” described Nobuo TAKAMORI. For this exhibition, artists gleaned remnants of the past and turned them into pieces of art that embody the weight of time as well as inspiration of life and death.

Po-I CHEN (born in 1972) photographed the old village of Hongmaogang during the process of its removal. He transforms images of relic into works that tell changes over time while pondering over the meaning of modernization. LIN Jin-Da (born in 1983) blends his personal life experiences into works of video, photographs, literature and documents, which also probe into the collective memory and cultural context of contemporary society. Taking family history as the main subject of her art, LEE Jo Mei (born in 1985) has created videos and installation works with poetic quality. Shu-Kai LIN (born in 1983) uses hand-made molds left over by his father’s factory as material for his creation of imagined cities, providing a new way to look at urban life. The artistic career of Wei-Li YEH (born in 1971) has been a long process of junk-collection, utilization and transformation through which he attempts to redefine cultural history.

“The Lost Garden” tells the story of the past, the history of individual as well as people’s state of living at the present. It reveals how the artists collect memories in the remains of time, history, and reflect the present world they live in.

*image (left)
LEE Jo Mei
Yi Shan Qing Yun: Picking Peanuts, 2013,
Curtain & installation, 136 x 140 cm
courtesy of the artist and Eslite Gallery