Su-Hui-Yu (b. 1976) currently Lives and works in Taipei, Taiwan.

SU (Su Hui-Yu) obtained an MFA from Taipei National University of the Arts in 2003, and has remained active in the contemporary art scene and the film society ever since. His “Re-shooting” series (補拍) centers around Taiwanese and East Asian history, memory, re-imagination and transgression. His recent projects engage collective memories and ideologies while exploring the mechanism of oppression and liberation tied to Taiwan cultural values.

SU’s works have been exhibited at renowned festivals, exhibitions and art institutes, including the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival, Singapore International Film Festival, the Videonale (Germany), PERFORMA (New York, USA), RISING (Melbourne), Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture(China), Curitiba International Biennial of Contemporary Art (Brazil), MOCA Taipei, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, San Jose Museum of Art (California, USA), Casino Luxembourg, Bangkok Arts and Culture Center, Kunsthalle Winterthur (Switzerland), 1646 Art Space (Den Haag, The Netherlands) and Power Station of Art (Shanghai, China). In 2017, International Film Festival Rotterdam dedicated a retrospective to SU’s video works, while his video work Super Taboo had its world premiere in the Tiger Awards Competition for Short Films. Su returned the competition twice after that in 2019 and 2021. In 2019, Su won the 17th Taishin Arts Award- Visual Art Award. In the summer of 2023, Su’s new project The Space Warriors series will be exhibited at Hyundai ArtLab in Seoul for the finalist of the 5th VH Art Award, and at Kunstsammlungen am Theaterplatz in Germany. The same year in May, Su’s first museum solo production The Trio Hall was exhibited in MOCA Taipei, curated by Eugenio Viola.

Chi-Wen at ART SG 2024

Chi-Wen’s presented artist’s highlight
5th VH Award Finalist Exhibition
Su Hui-Yu (award finalist / Taiwan)
NAC (National Arts Council) / Singapore Art Week 2024
Exhibition period: January 21st to February 4th, 2024
Opening event: 5pm, January 20th
Location: Objectifs, Singapore
https://www.artweek.sg/events/the-5th-vh-award-exhibition

About the Exhibition

Initiated in 2016 by Hyundai Motor Group, the VH AWARD is Asia’s leading award for new media artists who are engaged with the context and future of Asia.

The 5th VH AWARD Exhibition presents the works by Grand Prix recipient Subash Thebe Limbu (b. 1981, Dharan), as well as award finalists Zike He (b. 1990, Guiyang), Riar Rizaldi (b. 1990, Bandung), Su Hui-Yu (b. 1976, Taipei) and zzyw (founded in 2017, based in New York).

The works examine novel approaches to our interaction with technology, encompassing a wide range of topics such as social and environmental concerns, the emergence of artificial intelligence, and the formation of identities that transcend historical boundaries. The artists explore speculative prospects for contemplating time, humanity, and cross-cultural collaboration, alongside unique perspectives on the future and the intersection of art and technology.
Artists: Subash Thebe Limbu, Yakthung (Limbu) Zike He, Riar Rizaldi, Su Hui-Yu, zzyw

Artwork Introduction

Su Hui-Yu | The Space Warriors and the Digigrave | 2023

In East Asia, during the last decade of the Cold War from 1984 to 1987, CTS, one of Taiwan’s only three official TV stations at that time, produced and broadcasted a very rare and weird sci-fi series, Space Warriors. It was basically copied from the Japanese series Super Sentai in late 1970s with modifications. At the same time, it also referenced the Gavan, the follow-up series of Super Sentai, and was mixed with some local elements. CTS eventually discontinued the series due to low ratings, inconsistent production quality, overt criticism from parents, and the import of the Japanese original on VHS and satellite television. Unfortunately, the sci-fi did not open the people’s imaginative thoughts about the universe and the world, but rather, the series, combined with illogical fantasy and Chinese Folktales and even martial arts elements, subtly implied nationalism, Confucianism, patriarchy, and other values, which was a very strange and unique experience during the martial law period.

Digigrave and the new Space Warriors are fraternal twins, respectively assembling various escaping methods on the Internet, books and physical surfaces. They invite people to revisit the collective experience of the Taiwanese sci-fi genre. Based on my personal childhood memories of martial law during the production and broadcast of Space Warriors, the new Space Warriors will once again use sci-fi as a lever, but it will no longer serve the grand narrative. Instead, I would create a universe of moral paradoxes in which alien races would invade Earth and threaten the so-called human value system—nationality, identity, gender, and even the concept of “time”. In this case, aliens who are perceived as obscene and erotic could lead to the extinction of human values. One of the main concepts of this new narrative comes from Jack Halberstam’s “Queer Time”, as a lever, it will influence and reorganize a chain of thoughts in my concept, including relocation, reset, anti-production, anti-”capitalist’s time”, anti-male and classical view of history. Furthermore, it may thus open up the scope of the concept of queerness to include a variety of sexualities and ethnicities. To Fuck the Time, as a metaphor and a resistance.