Eating Wind, at first glance it is not a term familiar to Taiwanese people, but in Malaysia it is a widely used term meaning “travel” and “vacation”. This June 2014 Open Call was awarded to curators Hoo Fan Chon and Yi Chiu Chen with their exhibition EATING WIND an international exhibition collaboration between the two curators from Taiwan and Malaysia. The works presents the memories and views of Penang and the artists’ cultural experience of Malaysia. 

VT has always been searching for more ways to diversify ourselves, and hope to have more artist participating in our exhibitions, in 2012 VT held the first Open Call, and the second installation this year has already been underway since the end of 2013, receiving more than 50 application spanning five continents including Taiwan, China, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Australia, England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Czech Republic, Hungary, the Netherlands, Russia, Bulgaria, Austria, Poland, Scotland, USA, Canada, Jordan, Iran and South Africa totaling 24 countries. After the initial selection 12 teams was selected as the finalist for the Open Call committee. This year VT specially invited as the committee member Jiehong Jiang professor of Chinese Art in Birmingham City University and the curator of Asia Triennial Manchester 2014, Chu The-I director of the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts and Hu Yung-Fen curator and critic. After intense debate and discussions the committee decided to award the Open Call to Malaysia team - curator Hoo Fan Chon and Yi Chiu Chen with their exhibition project "EATING WIND"

EATING WIND is curatrated by artist and curator Hoo Fan Chon, where he invited 13 artist living in Malaysia to use travel as a concept to develop their works, and was first exhibited in Run Amok Gallery in Penang, Malaysia. In 2014 Hoo Fan Chon and Run Amok Gallery team up with Taiwanese curator Yi Chiu Chen in organizing this exhibition. Art works by the 13 invited artist will be displaying in VT Artsalon in Taiwan, and using culture context familiar in Malaysia the artist each create individual pieces and collectively displaying Penang as a historical and cultural city, providing different method of interpreting Malaysian government’s “art tourism” policy to attract oversea spending from tourism, possibly questioning, reflecting or reinterpreting on these policy. For artists vacation is part of life, but the definition of cultural tourism can endlessly renew through the works of artists, challenging the understanding of vacation and travel in people’s minds.

*image (left)
Hoo Fan Chon
Noew Everyone Can Jump 
courtesy of the artist and Run Amok Gallery