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What constitutes space? The vertical walls and pillars as well as the horizontal ceiling and floor in an exhibition venue are oftentimes ignored or overlooked. Nonetheless, these structures and the linear dimension they represent are defining elements for space. “Playing with Space” presented by Taoyuan Children's Art Center takes this as the point of departure. Through the huge installations of Wang Te-Yu, Lin Yu-Cheng, Chiu Yu-Wen, and Kou Tak-Leong, children and parents are invited to experience, participate, and explore space in games.

Wang Te-Yu inflated an inflatable installation in between the ceiling and the floor. Visitors can step in to experience a space where boundaries dissolve while trace sounds in a quest for a spatial game that guides the tactile sense with the auditory sense and deploys bodily senses. Lin Yu-Cheng employs beams, pillars, walls, and stairs commonly seen. These elements are deconstructed and reassembled into a “stage” and the de facto protagonist therein that guides us to reopen our eyes to architectural spaces. The “little things” crafted by the artist cling to or hide in these components. In funs and wonders, it allows us to refocus on our everyday environment and rediscover ordinary corners. Architect Chiu Yu-Wen dissects a continual wall into several ones that intersect with one another, while separating pillars from walls. Visitors are welcome to walk among them to savor the novel experience of breaking free from the order and rules of space. Kou Tak-Leong utilizes laser to turn visitors’ bodies into “lighting coordinates” for positioning. Visitors can thus roam in the midst to appreciate the movement of “coordinates”, vividly sensing the whereabouts of their own while exploring the space.

Children’s “spatial concept” is developed through bodily perception and authentic experience. It is essential to life learning and to scientific or artistic development. “Playing with Space” modifies, alters, and flips the existing exhibition space. These art installations that invite one to enter, to interact in games, and to immerse themselves in experiences stimulate one’s curiosity and acute perception as well as facilitate one’s formulation and rediscovery of spatial cognition via visual, auditory, tactile, and particularly bodily senses. Meanwhile, visitors young and old are invited to break free from the existing frameworks and open up their imagination toward space.

ARTISTS
WANG Te-Yu

Born in 1970, Wang obtained her MFA at the School of Fine Arts, Taipei National University of the Arts. Wang Te-Yu endeavors ceaselessly to explore space and ponder over human’s condition in space. Her practices oftentimes replace visual experience with bodily senses, allowing visitors to interact and practically “enter” her works.

LIN Yu-Cheng

Born in 1979, Lin Yu-Cheng graduated from the Department of Sculpture, National Taiwan University of Arts. He concerns himself with kinetic sculpture as well as engages in public art production. He often simulates bricks via rollover and produces “homemade” cement gears or motors for kinetic installation assembly. Through the mechanical operation therein, it symbolizes the repeated cycle of urban life.

CHIU Yu-Wen

Born in 1976, Chiu obtained his Master of Architecture from Cornell University in the U.S. He is a faculty at the Department of Architecture, Chung Yuan Christian University, and the head of Synchronic Composing Architect. Chiu and his team partook in and stood out in the selection for the 2^nd edition of X-site Project organized by Taipei Fine Arts Museum in 2015.

KOU Tak-Leong

Born in Macau in 1991, Kou is an alumnus of the Department of Architecture, Shih Chien University, and of the New Media Art Department, Taipei National University of the Arts. The artist participated in Nuit Blanche Taipei and Yuejin Lantern Festival Tainan. Kou Tak-Leong’s practices mainly emphasizes technology and space, constantly broadening people’s perception and imagination via superimposition, reflection, and projection of light.