Written by Yi-Cheng Sun; translated by Yi-Yu Lai.
Image credit: The performance record of “The Bird’s Still Singing” at the “2021 Taipei Art Awards” exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum. Photo courtesy of Yi-Cheng Sun.
In 2022, at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum’s “Taipei Art Awards” exhibition, artist Shao-Gang Wang was honoured with the Excellence Award for his artwork titled “The Bird’s Still Singing.” This piece continues his collaboration with young actors that began in 2019 with the works “AppleGreen” and “DeepBlue.”
In the “The Bird’s Still Singing exhibition,” two large screens display a group of young individuals revelling and delivering monologues amidst mountains and oceans. The white walls are adorned with scattered hand-drawn pencil drawings. If you were to visit the exhibition regularly, you would encounter fragmented and soft images depicting demons, knives, cloaks, bodies, whispers, and light as you walked through the white cube-like space. On weekends, however, the hands from the doodles and faces from the video works would manifest in the exhibition space, singing, dancing, lying down, running, and communicating with each other in silence, completing their performance. Throughout the performance, an unseen yet vaguely sensed flow envelops the exhibition space. Shao-Gang Wang stood quietly on the side, observing and waiting for the gradual convergence of something that was about to happen but had not yet occurred.
Wang’s connection with this group of young individuals began in 2015 when he took on the role of a guest instructor in a performance class at a high school in Taipei. As his previous works were primarily focused on film and video, the school assumed he was there to teach filmmaking. However, he actually taught me how to engage with oneself and achieve creativity through personal experiences.
When talking about his collaborative works with the students, “AppleGreen” and “DeepBlue,” it was revealed that they were inspired by the graduation song the students had composed. Feeling a strong sense of “mortality” within the harmonious and beautiful melody, Wang embarked on creating these two works. The production of these works took place immediately after the graduation song’s music video was filmed. The students wore costumes chosen by Wang and the crew, along with props such as dragon fruits and toy water guns and transformed into actors for the filming on the same beach where the music video was shot.
“In the process of creating works with teenagers as the medium, all the scripts are a fusion of my own experiences and theirs,” Wang proudly stated. The sentiments, emotions, and relationships gave birth to these works. Consequently, it is more accurate to say that Wang and the students collaborated through their interactions. Long-term “interactions” between individuals are always complex and difficult to interpret, as different statuses may only reveal “assigned roles” rather than the essence of relationships. Wang is unique because, as a teacher and an artist, he can incorporate his creative and pedagogical perspectives without experiencing the role-switching detachment typically associated with multiple social roles.
Letting Education and Creation Intersect in Experience
When discussing his thoughts on education, Wang said, “I’ve always felt that the greatest obstacle in art education is the hierarchical relationship between teachers and students.” Perhaps it is for this reason that he prefers the terms “interaction,” “inspiration,” and “discussion” over “teaching” to describe the act of instructing. “I don’t need to teach you anything, but I can share the methods I have discovered in art that allow me to transcend certain limitations. It may be useless in society, but it can also be useful because you can use these methods to do other things and become more creative.”
Such an idea is not unfounded, given that Wang was nurtured in an art-focused environment since childhood. It corresponds closely with numerous artists with formal training and has provoked similar reflections on education, art, and technique. Alongside considering power dynamics in the classroom, Wang is more inclined to guide students to discover their “tools” and explore themselves. He chooses a different approach to education while remaining dedicated to art rather than investing time and effort in cultivating a personal style to distinguish himself as an artist. This is his own creative medium and approach.
Insisting on sustaining interaction and discussion with students and fostering their personal development, Wang always listens to students during their interactions. When these experiences are “brought back to creation,” they possess immense creative power, in his opinion. Reflecting on his own process of learning and working in documentary filmmaking, he was profoundly impacted by the words of an experienced documentary filmmaker: “Do you want to be a fly high above the dance floor or someone who dances with everyone?” As a result, he places a greater emphasis on interpersonal connections in his artistic work and deeply expects to gain insight into others’ lives and experiences. On this basis, he is extremely sensitive to students’ feelings and takes them from their experiences to the realm of creation. In his almost unique teaching approach, he continues integrating his artistic methods and creative perspectives accumulated from his time on set and alone.
Outlining the Framework to Sketch out the Creation In the book “When Teaching Becomes Form: A Pedagogical Art Project and Its Resonance,” art educator and researcher Dai-Rong Wu explore a “pedagogical art project” through his eight-year teaching and creative project called “When a Home Becomes a Museum (WHBM)” at Taipei Veterans Home. She emphasises the coexistence and overlapping of the dual identities of “artist-teacher” by constantly reflecting on the project. In addition, in “Artist-Teacher: A Philosophy for Creating and Teaching,” G. James Daichendt demonstrates the duality between artist and teacher that exists among art education practitioners. It is not about reconciling the distinct roles of artists and educators or finding a compromise between them. Rather, it is about recognising and embracing the dual nature of being both an artist and a teacher.
Wang’s instruction provides a clearer case for understanding a technique that is both artistic and instructional. For him, being an artist requires a long accumulation process to obtain insights through exploration. He believes that “artists spend their entire lives investigating themselves and attempting to communicate with themselves.” Therefore, he encourages and directs students to concentrate on their minor experiences, gradually getting closer to themselves. Specifically, he often asks students to explore and experiment within the “framework” he establishes. This technique of setting frameworks is comparable to the meticulous process of developing a “feel” and gaining experience that a film or documentary director must undertake. For example, Wang once instructed a student who lacked confidence in their body but had a deep desire to “perform and display their body at the boundary between darkness and light” in a poetic manner.
In “The Bird’s Still Singing,” Wang requested the students to engage in performance and communicate with each other without letting the audience know. Throughout the afternoon performance, the actors navigated the blurred boundaries of interaction, communication, and performance, generating tension through the understanding and improvisation between individuals and by seeking vitality and creativity within the framework’s constraints.
The Ideal Life for Creation
In my view, this interview gives the impression that art education is an equally important practice in his life as art creation. The motivation, for him, is like compensation for his dissatisfaction with the educational system, stemming from a series of “failures” in his past. This led him to consider the impact he wanted to have on students, and he ultimately positioned himself as a “provocateur” but also a “devil” who seeks to incite “rebellion” in students and then demonstrate its reality. Therefore, he endorses all honest expressions from students. At the same time, as an artist with a unique sensitivity to people, objects, and materials, he both listens to and provokes students to find their own tools for “exaggerating” various life situations, difficulties, and emotions. This creative approach is personal and unique to each individual.
Once, Wang discovered in an animation work of a student that the student had unconsciously imitated an artist whom Wang himself admired. Wang, however, believes that his expertise as an artist lies in uncovering the student’s unique brushstrokes hidden amidst the copied imagery. With this professional foundation, he encourages students to continue drawing and finding brushstrokes.
There was also a time when he encountered a student who was lost in familial relationships; he devised scenarios within a framework to guide the student in confronting the imperfections of the real world. The student eventually recorded the sounds of family conflicts and practised listening to them, turning them into a dance. In Wang’s art education, it is more than just a teacher-student relationship in teaching and learning; he sees it as a “healing relationship.” This may be the most significant distinction between art education and other disciplines, as “this healing requires creative generation.” For him, art’s medium and material language serves as a foundation with the ability to transform reality. In art education, students often find their own materials and embark on a creative and healing voyage through prolonged concentration and experimentation within the framework.
Unlike creators who separate their roles as artists and teachers, education and creation appear to form an intertwined and complementary relationship in Wang’s artistic blueprint. As Wang shares his teaching experiences, he interweaves memories of his own enduring family issues, highlighting the significance and role of art in his life. This idealistic connection between art and life seems to manifest in the students who are with him daily as they face their own experiences and those of others. It appears that the “ideal creative life” can only be achieved by following the life journey of the creator, and this may also be the path to bring future generations of creators closer to that type of life.
Yi-Cheng SUN, born in 1990, lives and works in Taipei, Taiwan. She is an independent curator, community contributor and lecturer at NTUH. Her recent interests include cross-disciplinary (Art & Science) collaborative approaches, critical pedagogy, and artist-teacher.
This article was published as part of a special issue on The Artist-Teachers in Taiwan.
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