Ting Chang-Wen
Ting Chang-Wen was born in Kaohsiung, Taiwan in 1979. He graduated from the Tainan National University of the Arts in 2006 and presently lives and works in Tainan. Ting is a skilled creator of mixed media installations, blending imagery and objects within spatial contexts. His works are frequently inspired by personal experiences. By placing readymade objects against carefully designed exhibition backdrops, the artist transforms the objects into unique historical narratives. Amidst his impressive innovations, Ting attempts to deconstruct, delineate, and recontextualize our shared history. In doing so, he delves into the phenomena and questions related to material culture, historical conflicts, collective memory, and cross-border existence.
Ting’s representative exhibitions include Repeat Itself, Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin, Germany (2021); 2019 Asian Art Biennial: The Strangers from beyond the Mountain and the Sea, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan (2019); Artsource, Fremantle (2017); Citation from Craft: Contemporary Textile Art Taiwan-Kanazawa International Exhibition, Kanazawa (2017); Taipei Biennial 2016: Gestures and Archives of the Present, Genealogies of the Future, Taipei (2016).
- Location Germany / Berlin
- Year of the Grant 2020
- Residency Künstlerhaus Bethanien
- Work Japamala
My creative program at the Künstlerhaus Artist House (Künstlerhaus Bethanien) in Germany encompasses three sections. The first is historical research on the Holzdorf Manor Park (Park des Landguts Holzdorf). The second is an on-site installation developed from the findings of the research. For this part of the project, I worked with Indian-French artist Dominique Baron-Bonarjee during the 2021 Weimar Arts Festival (Kunstfest Weimar 2021). The last is a solo exhibition held at the Künstlerhaus Artist House, showcasing the installation and a few accompanying videos in their entirety. During the residency, I also participated in open studio and an online exhibition tour.
The historic Holzdorf Manor Park is hailed as a gem of Thüringen, Germany. Built between the 17th and the 18th Centuries, this majestic architecture was once the private mansion of entrepreneur Dr. Otto Krebs. The park boasts a magnificent interior and houses numerous French and German Impressionist masterpieces. It even features a unique French garden and an Alpine garden. Nevertheless, the turbulences of history have changed these treasures’ destinies drastically.
During World War II, the Holzdorf Manor Park fell under occupation by Natzis and Soviet forces. After the troops withdrew, the park underwent a few more changes. At one point, it functioned as a training base. At others, it served as a children’s home. Only until 1999 that it was refurbished to be a cultural destination. Pitifully, Dr. Krebs’ collections had already been relentlessly plundered in the course of time, and most of them had drifted to various corners of the world.
Drawing from my research on the history of the Holzdorf Manor Park, I came up with a project named “Japamala.” Fusing elements of landscape culture, performance, and installation art, Baron-Bonarjee surrounded a portrait sculpture I crafted in the manor’s pond with several enormous stone chains made of Holzdorf limestone. This artwork aims to re-examine the relationship between materials and culture.
At the solo exhibition held at the Bethanien Artist House, I reiterated the creative journey behind my works inspired by the Holzdorf Manor Park and continued to expound on the narrative. Instead of the pond sculpture, I placed a multi-layered video installation simulating the pond setting on the second floor of the gallery of the Bethanien Artist House. Projections illuminated the artificial pond, delineating the park’s history. The video also describes an imagined connection to French artist Constantin Meunier’s 1896 sculpture, The Sewer. The artwork, once a part of Dr. Kreb’s collections at the Holzdorf Manor Park, now graces the meadow of the Old National Gallery (Alte Nationalgalerie) in Berlin.
Author: Ting Chang-Wen
Edited: Brix