This screening presents two Taiwanese art films, The Subduction Zone- Our Suite de Danses and In Memory of the Chinatown, inviting audiences into Taiwan’s landscapes, cities, and sites of memory. From tectonic boundaries and coastal mountains to an urban building on the verge of disappearance, these films capture more than scenery—they reveal an island shaped by history, daily life, and constant change.

Through cinema, Polish audiences are invited to come closer to Taiwan and sense the quiet echoes that may resonate between our experiences.

> Free entry but registration required via Google Form 

Shake 雪克  |  The Subduction Zone – Our Suite de Danses 隱沒帶 – 我們的組曲

7 min. 2016

Shake’s The Subduction Zone takes Taiwan’s distinctive topography and geopolitical history as its point of departure. Tracing tectonic boundaries, the work journeys to the Tatun Volcano Group in Taipei; the Yuli–Antong section of the former railway in Hualien, which crosses the boundary between the Eurasian Plate and the Philippine Sea Plate; and the Jili Badlands in Taitung. While these sites serve as textbook examples of tectonic convergence for geologists, Shake asks whether such landscapes might also enable an imagining of the geopolitical struggles that have unfolded on this island. How can one find a place of grounding amid conflicting political, economic, cultural, and ideological forces? How might one reimagine one’s own condition and narrate one’s own story?

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» GET TO KNOW THE ARTIST «

Shake is a moving image artist who graduated from the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Paris-Cergy in France. Using cinematic language as her methodology, she experiments with moving image narratives. Her recent works focus on Asian geopolitics, identity construction, and the relationship between collective and personal memory. She has participated in international artist residencies and exhibited her work across multiple countries.

Shake 雪克, The Subduction Zone – Our Suite de Danses 隱沒帶 – 我們的組曲

Chun-Tien CHEN 陳君典  |  In Memory of The Chinatown 紀念中國城

29 min. 2015

Does a building have its own reincarnation? The Chinatown complex, located at the bottom of Tainan City’s Zhongzheng Road and the blind section of the Anping Canal, was formerly the site of the Anping Canal Dockyard. After more than thirty years of ups and downs, it is about to face an urban plan to demolish it and rebuild a man-made lagoon on the site. The decline of Chinatown reflects the fate of a number of large shopping malls in Taiwan. However, the old residents who stayed in Chinatown have experienced the bitter taste of urban renewal with the occasional rumors of demolition.

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» GET TO KNOW THE ARTIST «

CHEN Chun-tien graduated from the Tainan National University of the Arts, Graduate Institute of Studies in Documentary. As a filmmaker, he explores various fields of visual arts including documentary, animation and experimental films. He has made films centered on the issues of architecture and urban change. His animation work Sick Building Syndrome (2015) was presented at domestic and international festivals, including Taipei Film Festival and Kaohsiung Film Festival. His documentary work In Memory of the ChinaTown (2016) uses experimental methods to explore urban renewal issues, selected in the New Asian Currents competition of Yamagata International Film Festival. He made his fiction film debut A Long Goodbye to the Origin at Kaohsiung Film Festival 2021.

Chun-Tien CHEN 陳君典, In Memory of The Chinatown 紀念中國城

Followed by a live set by (ether o) Chia-Liang Lai

Get to know more about this live audiovisual set HERE