【Introduction of the Exhbition 】

Reflections of Taiwan (Written by curator Taeho Choi)

Contemporary artists: Huang Chienhua and Cheng Jenpei from Taiwan, and Peter Baran and Valentina Huckova from Slovakia, meet at the intersection of memory, identity, and place. 

Though rooted in distinct cultural landscapes, the artists discover surprising echoes between their environments. Despite the distance, Slovakia and Taiwan share parallel experiences: political upheaval, periods of foreign domination, and the continual reconstruction of cultural identity. These parallel histories form a subtle undercurrent throughout the exhibition - a mutual sense of resilience, fragmentation, and reinvention.

The Slovak artists, arriving as guests, observe Taiwan with attentive, intuitive eyes, sensitive to urban rhythms, spiritual textures, and layered narratives. They walk through Taiwanese cities, breathe in the scents of its markets, and listen to the ancient forests. Their works, spanning sculpture to moving image, embody both presence and reflection.

The Taiwanese artists turn their eyes toward the familiar. As they were seen from the outside, the feeling of “this is where I come from” grew even more present. Drawing from the rituals of daily life, the intimacy of food, and the unspoken gestures of belonging, their works ground the exhibition in lived experience, weaving personal mythologies into a shared space.

The exhibition becomes a space of layered seeing, where insider and outsider perspectives reflect and refract one another. It does not aim to deliver a grand message. Rather, it quietly gathers the small reflections the artists left behind as they encountered each other like mirrors, or like ripples on still water. 

It invites the viewer not only to look, but to linger - to notice the shifting light, the textures of daily life, and the invisible threads that weave across cultures. In this shared pause, the boundaries of place and identity blur, and something both fragile and profound begins to emerge.

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【Introduction of Artists】

Peter Baran

Concrete is the most used human-made material in the world, which makes it the perfect material to capture the human-made world. 

In my view, there is no other material comparable to the scale of usage in the modern world and its impact on us humans, we build our world from it. I like to call our period the Concrete Age.

My fascination with working in concrete comes from a desire to disrupt its stereotype. It’s typically seen as unpolished, dirty, and heavy. My process is indeed physical and visceral, but the results are the opposite: clean, precise, and detailed. I treat concrete like marble, polishing it to a fine finish - creating a deliberate mismatch between expectation and reality.

The creative process behind my sculptures reflects two key perspectives I hold about this material.

Firstly, I see concrete as monumental, widely used, and irreplaceable - a medium through which I express ideas of equal weight. These are concepts ingrained in our modern history, shaped by the masses, and reflective of human progress.

Secondly, I see concrete as a utilitarian, rough building material, which I use for its original purpose - as a building material for sculptures rooted in architectural forms.

REGULAR CONCRETE is my art project focused on creating sculptures exclusively from this material.

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Valentina Huckova

Valentina Huckova is a Slovak visual artist, educator, and cultural organiser whose multidisciplinary practice interweaves art, ecology, and community engagement. Guided by the belief that creativity can foster awareness and inspire action, she creates projects that encourage reflection, collaboration, and care, often with a participatory nature.

Valentína holds a degree in Animation, Moving Image and Sound from Norwich University of the Arts, UK. Her work is shaped by eco-critical and phenomenological perspectives, using visual storytelling to facilitate direct, sensory engagement with place. Whether through visual art, animation, or collaborative workshops, she explores the evolving relationship between individuals, communities, and their environments.

Her socially engaged community projects span a wide range of contexts from urban schools to international residencies, where she works with participants of all ages, from children to the elderly. In each setting, she uses art as a tool for self-expression, cultural dialogue, and ecological awareness, creating inclusive spaces where collective imagination becomes a means of empowerment.

Collaboration and care are central to her methodology. Valentína’s projects often draw on local narratives and environmental concerns, bridging the personal and the political. She aligns her practice with the idea that art can serve as both a mirror and a catalyst - reflecting the world as it is while inviting us to envision what it might become.

Currently, her work continues to explore how creative processes can respond to ecological crises, contributing to a broader conversation on sustainability and cultural resilience. She sees socially engaged art as a powerful way to build informed, connected communities and reconnect people with their environment, culture, and each other.

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Huang Chienhua 

Specializing in contemporary photography, Huang Chien-Hua earned his PhD degree from the Doctoral Program in Art Creation and Theory, Tainan National University of the Arts. He majored in sculpture during his college years, and then focused on image presentation at the graduate school where he tried to introduce his opinion on the very being in physical space-time into contemporary digital images. He pays extra attention to non-human creatures and their relations to communities, seeking to investigate the identity of humankind in the era of photo manipulation.

His works feature the combination of digital synthesis and installation, addressing the issues of ecosystem, sovereign territory, and the equality/balance between cultural ideologies that photography has encountered in this world. In addition to being interested in the qualitative change of image and viewing behavior, Huang responds to contemporary people’s real-life experiences via digital logic, linguistic symbols, and gameplay, which conjures multifaceted human fables with a humorous touch of disorder.

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Cheng Jenpei

Cheng Jenpei, Born in 1983 in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, is a contemporary artist. Currently residing in Yokohama, Japan. The form of creation is based on participatory art, and it examines the posture of food culture in the current era from the perspective of environment and humanities. 

Supported using public funding by Slovak Arts Council - @fond_na_podporu_umenia