Nostalgia is a Waving Flag: Taiwan and Hong-Kong Video Art Exhibition

The concept of nostalgia appears extensively in various forms of cultural products––literature, cinema, commercial advertisements, and even in politics—in a variety of terms and phrases, including “mother country”, “homeland”, “glorious past”, “magnificent history”, and “let’s be great again”, to name a few. Such rhetoric not only reminds us of the depressing contrast between a seemingly marvelous past and, by comparison, seemingly miserable present but also allures us into a passionate devotion to nationalism that induces us to summon Hobbes’s Leviathan to amend the status quo.

However, a closer look at the situations in Taiwan and Hong Kong reveals how complicated the interrelationship between wishful longing and nationalism indeed is. Nostalgia is not merely a political term nor a tool for classifying oneself in relation to others. On top of that, it is also a yearning for mutual understanding and for close connection with one’s original family, a frustrating expression of despair and hopefulness, and an individual’s initiative to strive to establish an intimate, affable linkage with land.

By virtue of the video works made in the past two decades by artists from Hong Kong and Taiwan, the exhibition not only addresses the dispute over identity across generations in Taiwanese society but also depicts the ongoing transformation and reconstruction of identity in Hong Kong over the years. Ultimately, it reveals that in the face of totalitarianism, nostalgia will no longer be simply a personal feeling but a waving flag that calls for solidarity.

LIAO Xuan-Zhen + HUANG I-Chieh + LEE Chia-Hung + WANG Yu-Ping, WANG Ding-Yeh, Birdy CHU Shun, WU Tzu-An, David Clarke, LIN Yi-Chi, WONG Chi Fai + YAU Ching + Ellen PAU, Anson MAK Hoi San, CHAN Tai Lee, KUO Shu-Feng, CHEN Ting-Jung, CHOI Sai Ho, Bauki Angaw, ZHENG Bo

Speakers: YAU Ching, WANG Ding-Yeh, LIN Yi-Chi

This Shore: A Family Story｜WU Tzu-An｜2020, 62 min.

Time Splits in the River｜LIAO Xuan-Zhen, HUANG I-Chieh, LEE Chia-Hung, WANG Yu-Ping｜2016, 87 min.