On August 10, 2022, Taiwan's Ministry of Culture and the Museum of Vancouver launched a new collaboration with a Memorandum of Understanding and the first joint exhibition, " In Reflection Across the Shore." Te-Yun Chien, Director of the Taiwan Academy in Los Angeles, represented the Ministry of Culture at the signing ceremony, while Mr. Brenda van Engelen, Board Member, and Viviane Gosselin, Director of Collections and Exhibitions and Curator of Contemporary Culture, represented the Vancouver Museum. The ceremony was followed by a spectacular musical performance by Kanatal, a Taiwanese indigenous band.
In recent years, cultural exchanges between Taiwan and Canada have become increasingly close. This year, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Canada organized a series of events to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Dr. George Leslie Mackay's visit to Taiwan. With support from Taiwan's Ministry of Culture, the Taiwan Academy in Los Angeles also organized the joint exhibition "In Reflection Across the Shore" at the Vancouver Museum. The two parties signed a five-year Memorandum of Understanding, during which three exhibitions and two series of events will be held in close cooperation. This exhibition opens from August 5 to November 6 and features 46 works by two participating artists, Yu-Wen Wang and Edward Juan, as well as artist dialogues and workshops on topography and paper dyeing.
As indicated by the Taiwan Academy in Los Angeles, the Museum of Vancouver is the largest municipal museum in Canada and is a historical, cultural and artistic landmark museum with a collection of over 85,000 artworks and historical artifacts. Through the signing of the MOU, we hope to enhance the capacity for cultural exchange between the two sides and highlight the spirit of multiculturalism through stories, exhibits and shared experiences.
Artist Yu-Wen Wang holds an M.F.A. from the National Taipei University of the Arts, and has exhibited at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, and the Jeonbuk Museum of Art, Korea. Moving to Taitung in 2005, she has been deeply influenced by her living environment. The nourishing influence of the mountains and the sea has also brought her creativity closer to the issues of self and nature.
Artist Edward Juan identifies as a queer Taiwanese Canadian with ethnic roots from the Hakka and Plains First Nations people of Taiwan. He holds a degree from California College of the Arts. In 2020, he was selected as an ambassador for BC Culture Days to promote multiculturalism in British Columbia. He specializes in the production of water-based inks derived from natural ingredients for screen printing and wood relief prints, as well as textiles and paper made from plant-based materials.
For more information about the event, please visit https://museumofvancouver.ca/in-reflection-across-the-shore.