Mission
Taiwan Visual Art Archive (TVAA) aims to promote Taiwanese art and culture by compiling historical, primary materials of Taiwanese art, collect, research and organize oral histories and release publications, and utilize its online platform to co-learn and cultivate talents in field research and art criticism.
The conception of TVAA draws from the experience of several groups in various stages. In 2011, the online platform Arts Observer Field Archive (https://aofa.tw) was set up to elevate the developmental context of contemporary art in Tainan. Later that year, Ocular Studio was established with the objective of field research, collecting art historical materials, and planning contemporary exhibitions that cross-reference archives and artworks, editing and publishing a series of books.
In view of the trend of “archival turn,” TVAA was launched in April 2020, in the praxis of “research-publication-curation.” Unlike the collections of institutions, TVAA focuses on folk modern and contemporary artworks and its documents, including letters, diaries, drafts, transcripts, collecting and investigating archival materials, and conducting independent research related to the works. We hope to use archives as a method in providing Taiwanese art with a richer, global perspective and localized thinking through engaging in art criticism, research and curating.
TVAA Team
Principal | Wu Shang-Yu
Project Researcher at TVAA. Wu Shang-Yu received a Master of Arts in Art History, Criticism and Cultural Relics from National Tainan University of the Arts, with his graduate thesis focusing on theories of the Global South and strategies of modern and contemporary art museums. Wu has participated in the Art Archive Center in Taiwan’s “New Taipei City Collections Project” (2019), “South Plus: Constructing Historical Pluralism and local studies Project” (2018), among others. His writing has been published mainly in Artist Magazine, attending to non-Eurocentric/American-centric art practices and conducting interviews with international art institutions and biennale curators.
Administrative Assistant | Wu Yu-Wen
Administrative Assistant at TVAA. Wu Yu-Wen graduated from Tainan University of Technology, received a bachelor degree of Fine Art Department. Wu has participated Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts “South Plus: South as a Place of Colliding” as an assistant of researching (2021), ‘’On Wings of Mr. Wing, Infinitely’’ as an assistant of curating (2020). In 2022, Wu participated the editorial team of New Taipei City Art Museum publication ‘’Exhibition in Becoming: Taipei County Art Exhibition and Experimental Art, 1992-1997’’ and Taitung Art Museum publication ‘’The Other Story: From the Collection of Taitung Art Museum to Taitung Art History’’.
History
2021.01 Launched “Shatter Port: Southern Art Observation Project Platform” in cooperation with Absolute Space for the Arts and SinPinkPier.
2020.12 Signed a MOU with the Taiwan Art History Research Center of National Cheng Kung University.
2020.08.03 Set up workstation at Sanhe Street
2020.04.20 TVAA Established
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