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Going Green – New Environmental Art from Taiwan

A National Exhibit Opening Locally at The Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education and Asian Arts Initiative in Philadelphia

On view August 6 – August 20

The Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education and the Asian Arts Initiative are pleased to cooperate with the Taipei Cultural Center in New York City to present the exhibition Going Green: New Environmental Art from Taiwan.

The exhibition will offer to the USA audiences an international perspective on environmental art and reflect the unique viewpoint and approach to nature of Taiwan’s contemporary artists who are just beginning to focus on the environment as an important issue for their country and the world. Taiwan is a very urban and highly developed technological country with many contemporary artists specializing in video art and new media. It is only recently that a few artists in Taiwan have begun to focus on the environment, and re-introduce to contemporary art the use of natural materials and a focus on the natural world that has always been of major importance in traditional Chinese art and culture.

On View at Asian Arts and The Schuylkill Center
The show will open at Asian Arts Initiative, 1219 Vine St, Philadelphia 19107, on Friday, August 6, 5:30pm – 7:30pm with a reception and a panel discussion on contemporary Taiwanese environmental art (6pm). Panelists include curator, Jane Ingram Allen; Advising Director for The Schuylkill Center’s Environmental Art Program, Mary Salvante; and visiting Taiwanese artists Chao-chang Lee and Ping-yu Pan.

On Saturday, August 7, 3pm – 5pm, there will be guided tours of the exhibit’s outdoor installations at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education, 8480 Hagy’s Mill Road, (Roxborough) Philadelphia. Visiting artists Chao-chang Lee and Pin-yu Pan will discuss their works Everything is Buddha and Ark for Plants.

Visiting Artists
Chao-chang Lee and Pin-yu Pan will be artists in residence for two weeks at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education from July 26 to August 6. The visiting artists will create outdoor site-specific environmental art installations as part of this exhibition. Lee will create an installation titled Everything is Buddha using found natural materials and vegetables and fruit collected and shared with visitors. Pan will create a work titled Ark for Plants that will be made of fallen branches and vines and surround several young trees with a protective boat-like structure. The gallery installation at Asian Arts Initiative and will feature works by Lee and Pan, as well as works in all media by 14 other contemporary artists from Taiwan. The works in the exhibition focus on environmental issues such as global warming, pollution, waste disposal, loss of habitat, urban encroachment and other issues.

The Going Green exhibition is sponsored by the Taipei Cultural Center, New York City and funded by the Council for Cultural Affairs, Taiwan The exhibition will travel nationally in 2010, as follows:

July 9 Queens Botanical Garden. Flushing, NY
August 6 & 7 Asian Arts Initiative and The Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education, Philadelphia, PA
September 4 Accident Gallery, Eureka, CA
October 14 University of North Carolina at Pembroke , Pembroke, NC

The Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education and the Asian Arts Initiative are happy to cooperate in presenting this international exhibition in Philadelphia as part of their art exhibition programs to raise awareness about environmental issues and contribute to greater understanding and cultural exchange about the common environmental problems faced by the world today. The exhibition Going Green: New Environmental Art from Taiwan will be on view at the Asian Arts Initiative and Schuylkill Center in Philadelphia from August 6 – August 20, 2010.

View images from the Going Green Exhibit