Chia-Wei Hsu
Ruins of the Intelligence Bureau - Film - 13min - 2015
presented as part of the exhibition Panorama 17
HSU Chia Wei creates sensitive filmic narratives about geographical, historical and cultural regions in Asia, showing how the dense and complex layers of cultures and histories fundamentally transform the lives of people in the modern age. In this show Hsu is presenting Ruins of the Intelligence Bureau.
During the Civil War of China in 1950, a defeated army troop retreated to Huai Mo village in Thailand after their failure. And the political situation changed which became impossible for this troop to follow General Chiang Kai-Shek to move to Taiwan, nor for return to China. Therefore, they remained living in this Thai village, like a group of homeless people without any national identification.
Hsu incidentally met a priest in Huai Mo village, who used to be a spy. During the Cold War, Americans set the CIA in Huai Mo village. He had hidden his job as a spy behind the identity of the priest until he retired from CIA. In this film, Hsu invited other veterans of the former Intelligence Bureau aged between 60 to 80 years old to participate in the filming. Filming took place at the site of the Intelligence Bureau in Huai Mo village, and Hsu used the left foundation of the demolished Intelligence Bureau office as a stage, which traditional Thai puppeteers were invited to perform and the veterans were invited to watch the performance. The narrator in this video is the priest. In this voice-over, he talks about the myth of Hanuman, his personal memory and the destiny of the old veterans in a mixture order. Hanuman is a monkey general who rescues his troop, while in reality the veterans have no chance to return to homes. The process of studio recording has also become a part of this video.
Chia-Wei Hsu
Chia Wei Hsu creates films to build sensitive visual narratives about geographical, historical and cultural regions in Asia. Hsu is interested in the forgotten histories of the Cold War in Asia. His works develop a keen sensitivity that weaves together reality and illusion, history and the present by building a circuit of events in the hors champ of people and places off the screen of history. The artist reveals how the dense and complex layers of cultures and histories fundamentally transform peoples' lives in the modern age. In 2013, he was invited to present his works at the Venice Biennale, for the Taiwan Pavilion, and was nominated for the Hugo Boss Asia Art Prize. His work has been shown in numerous museum exhibitions, biennales and film festivals, notably the Jeu de Paume (2011), the 39th International Film Festival of Rotterdam (2012), the Liverpool Biennale (2012), the Taipei Biennale, and the 8th International Documentary Film Festival of Taiwan.
Production
Acknowledgments
National Culture and Arts Foundation, Taiwan Cultural Affairs Department, New Taipei City Government Taipei Culture Foundation
