Nida Art Residency finalist is from Taiwan
In 2022, the Lithuanian Photographers Association started a new artist’s residency program in Nida for a photographer or lens-based artist. The residency is also part of the international photography symposium NIDA. Meeting Photography. The aim is to reflect on Nida’s site-specific ecosystems and the changing boundaries of photography, to actualize photography both as a medium and as a means of expression. The program seeks to attract artists with a critical approach towards using their production tools, questioning the cultural discourse of their practice and having a strong socio-political mindset.
The only finalist for the Art Residency in Nida was the Taiwanese artist Chia-Yun Wu. She focuses on the production and research of the image and has conducted experiments and practice in transmedia. Through techniques of film narration, mise en scène and cinematic language that reconstructs the context, she seeks to alter image and sound into a spatial installation. In recent years, she has been selected internationally to the PROYECTOR Festival de Videoarte (Spain, 2019), the European Media Art Festival (Germany, 2020), Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin (France, 2021) and the London Short Film Festival (UK, 2022), has received a British Academy of Film Awards qualification, and has screened at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (London), Auditorium du Louvre (Paris) and Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin). Her work has been collected by the European Independent Film Channel (France, 2015).
During her residency the aim is to investigate the changing phenomenon of the image, as she realizes that we tend to think of mediums with certain idealistic and political representations even amid the digital age where boundaries are disappearing. She believes that photography has become a mixed presentation within the development of art, but these mixes are not only the disintegration or combination of forms and media, they are also the symbolizations of the materiality of the image. The project will be an exploration towards the nature of art.
Some 47 artists from 16 countries responded to the open call with 102 projects.
In the resident selection committee participated the art critic Agnė Narušytė; the curator, writer and art critic Valentinas Klimašauskas; the head of the Lithuanian Photographers Association and book designer Gytis Skudžinskas; residency patron Audronė Tylaitė; and curator and NIDA.Meeting Photography programmer Vilma Samulionytė.
The evaluation criteria included the importance and relevance of the proposed topic, the applicant’s previous experience and his or her interest and ability to actualize by combining local specifics, an expanded field of photography and their creative activities.
The results of the residency will be presented at the International Photography Symposium NIDA. Meeting Photography in the main program and it will be published in the form of a printed publication.
