JOINT PRESS RELEASE ON AUSTRALIA-TAIWAN FRIENDSHIP YEAR ARTS EXCHANGE PARTNERSHIP
ANNOUNCEMENT OF INAUGURAL EXCHANGE ARTISTS
AUSTRALIAN OFFICE, TAIPEI
NATIONAL CULTURE AND ARTS FOUNDATION
27 Dec 2022
Following the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Australian Office Taipei and Taiwan’s National Culture and Arts Foundation (NCAF) on 1 June 2022, we are pleased to announce the inaugural artists to participate under the Arts Exchange Partnership in 2023.
The inaugural Australian artist is Professor Deborah Cheetham AO, Yorta Yorta woman, soprano, composer and educator, and a leader and pioneer in the Australian arts landscape for more than 25 years. In 2009, Deborah Cheetham established Short Black Opera as a national not-for-profit opera company devoted to the development of Indigenous singers. Professor Cheetham is the recipient of numerous honours and awards recognising her outstanding contribution to Australian performing arts. Professor Cheetham’s Eumeralla, a war requiem for peace, has been performed to sold out audiences in Victoria and Western Australia, and her commissions for major Australian ensembles include works for the Victorian Opera, Sydney Philharmonia Choirs, Orchestra Victoria, Melbourne Ensemble, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Australia String Quartet and others. Professor Cheetham has been Composer-in-residence for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and is Professor of Music Practice at the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music, Monash University. In 2021 Professor Cheetham began a five-year appointment as MSO First Nations Creative Chair. She has also been appointed as the Elizabeth Todd Chair of Vocal Studies at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.
The inaugural Taiwanese artist is Anchi Lin Ciwas Tahos, an Atayal Indigenous new media artist based in Taipei, Taiwan. Ms Tahos holds a BFA majoring in Visual Art from Simon Fraser University and is currently a Master of Fine Arts candidate at the School of Film and New Media, Taipei National University of the Arts. Through her long-time engagement in interdisciplinary creations of videos, performance, internet and installation art, Ms Tahos explores issues related to decolonization, self-identity, gender identity, environment, and social norms. Highlights of her career in 2022 include holding her solo exhibition at Artspace Aotearoa in Auckland New Zealand for the first time and participating in the Wagiwagi Art Project in the 15th Documenta exhibition in Kassel Germany. Ms Tahos hopes to learn more about the creative methods of Australian curators and artists through this Arts Exchange Partnership opportunity, especially how artists from Asian diaspora and Australia’s First Nation communities use new media, performance art and digital technology to reaffirm ethnic sovereignty and digital sovereignty. She is also interested in understanding how queer is presented, portrayed, and received in Australian society.
Australian Representative, Ms Jenny Bloomfield, and Chair of NCAF, Professor Lin Mun-Lee, extend their congratulations to the inaugural artists and, through their art, look forward to their contributions further enriching Australia-Taiwan cultural exchanges and deepening our people-to-people links. The Arts Exchange Partnership will support and encourage further cooperation between Australian and Taiwanese artists, particularly our Indigenous artists. These exchanges will also serve as a lasting legacy of our Australia-Taiwan Friendship Year celebrations.