Working Hard

Statement

WORKING HARD is the brainchild of creative duo WEN-YING SHE and PO-YU KUO since 2015. They work on the border of audio memories and installation. For them, Working Hard is more than a name of the art collective but a method of aesthetic practice to reconstruct an imaginative space via archival approaches. After they gained their MFA sculpture degree from Taiwan University of Arts, their creations evolved with their experience working and living at different artist residencies. From an individual angle, they observe and experience the collective life of different cultures and societies. Through field research and artistic practice, they unveil the soon-to-be-forgotten social landscapes by conjuring the memories of a distinct, culturally hybridized immigrant history.

GlogauAIR Project

Observing people, their histories, their relationships and the social circumstances in which they live is an imperative part of the narrative in our projects. This may stem from our origin in Taiwan, where people have various complicated national identities. This has led to our curiosity about migration and the pursuit of vanishing histories under modernization. Thus, under the concept of ‘absence’, our residency project set up the audience as the critical element in the scene in which they will be given a chance to disclose the strange scenario. To trigger them to rethink the different narratives in the unfamiliar landscape. We are also interested and inspired by the museum with the verisimilitude facility, and archives about migrants’ history and nature. Within the combination of sound, smells, and vision, our work expresses the ‘transition’ and ‘exclusion’ of a culture that survives at the slit of the city.

Installation

CV Summary

Education

• 2016 National Taiwan University of Arts, Department of Sculpture, MFA

Solo exhibitions

• 2023 Feeder, Pedvāle Open Air Art Museum, Latvija
• 2022 Cómo están de ausentes las cosas queridas [How Dear Things are Absent], Vernàcular Institute, México City, Mexico
• 2022 A Better Tomorrow, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, Germany
• 2021 Rolling on, Tsung-Yeh Arts and Cultural Center, Tainan, Taiwan
• 2021 A Portal to… – Seeing Taiwan Cultural Association in the Chiayi Street Art Project, Chiayi Art Museum, Chiayi, Taiwan
• 2021 Lose sight of the shore, Cultural Affairs Bureau of Kinmen County, Taiwan
• 2021 Newww.Land.com, Inart Space, Tainan, Taiwan
• 2019 There is no Chinatown, Taipei Artist Villiage, Taipei, Taiwan
• 2019 There is no______, Pier‐2 Art Center, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
• 2018 There is no Chinatown, NZ’, Snowwhait Gallery, Unitec, Auckland, New Zealand

Group exhibitions

• 2023 Romantic Route 3, ’Travelers in Low-elevation Mountains’, Taiwan Oil Field Exhibition Hall, Miaoli, Taiwan
• 2022 Mattauw Triennial, Tsung-Yeh Arts and Cultural Center, Tainan, Taiwan
• 2021 Tomorrow, Towarding, ’The World is yet to Come’, MoCA Taipei, Taiwan
• 2021 Kaohsiung Award, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan
• 2020 Authentic World – Greater Taipei Biennial of Contemporary Art, Yo-Chang Art Museum, NTUA, New Taipei City, Taiwan
• 2020 To Lift a Curfew Group Exhibition, Matsu New Village Cultural and Creative Park, Zhongli, Taiwan
• 2019 City Flip-Flop, Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab (C-Lab), Taipei, Taiwan
• 2018 Indicate Injustice: Proposals for Visual Identity and Memorial Object of Monuments of Injusticework, National Human Rights Museum, Taipei

Residencies

• 2023 ‘Pedvāle Open Air Art Museum’, Latvija
• 2022 ‘Vernacular Institute’, Mexico City, Mexico
• 2022 ‘Künstlerhaus Bethanien’, Berlin, Germany
• 2021 ‘Tsung-Yeh Arts and Cultural Center’, Tainan, Taiwan
• 2021 ‘Cultural Affairs Bureau of Kinmen County’, Kinmen, Taiwan
• 2019 ‘National Museum of Taiwan History’, Tainan, Taiwan
• 2019 ‘PAIR, Pier‐2 Art Center’, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
• 2018 ‘National Museum of Prehistory’, Peinan Cultural Park, Taitung City, Taiwan
• 2018 ‘Unitec Institute of Technologies’, Funded by TAV, Auckland, New Zealand

Gallery