Tian Pin-hui
Poet Tian Pin-hui (artist name), currently based in the Netherlands, weaves her work around the theme of mobility, exploring how people cross borders and navigate the shifting terrains of gender, ethnicity, and class. Her artistry has received wide acclaim. She was awarded the Second Prize in the Lin Rong-San Short Story Award and selected for the Taiwan Poets Wandering Project. Her poetry collection Electricity Here Brightens the Lights There was shortlisted for the 2021 Openbook Book of the Year Award, a testament to her singular poetic vision.
- Location USA / Vermont
- Year of the Grant 2023
- Residency Vermont Studio Center
- Work Broiler-Man
- Personal Website Tian Pin-hui's Personal Website
The residency at the Vermont Studio Center is something I have long awaited. Within this atmosphere steeped in art and tranquility, I hoped to immerse myself in the writing of my poetry collection Broiler-Man. In recent years, I have ventured into creating with English and with sound. The chance to share my manuscripts with native English writers would be of rare and precious value. This concentrated span of time and space allowed me to step outside the patterns of daily life and surrender fully to writing and research. And the exchanges with artists from different backgrounds left a lasting resonance in my work.
The Vermont Studio Center offers abundant resources, including spacious studios and printmaking facilities, creating ideal conditions for visual artists. The Center also invites artists from diverse fields to share their work and creative experiences, while skill-based workshops serve as platforms for learning and practice. Senior artists mentor emerging talents, and open studios foster dialogue among artists and residents alike. My residency coincided with the Ghost Month in Taiwan, where I shared the customs of the Zhongyuan Festival and the Ghost Month with fellow residents. Additionally, I prepared 6 poems, written in both Mandarin and English, with themes of migration, gender, and ecology, and discussed them with the visiting writer Vanessa Angelica Villarreal. Through our conversations on form, contemporary poetry concepts, and bilingual practice, I gained invaluable inspiration for my work.
During the residency, there are opportunities to present your work on stage. You can thus bring either your original English pieces or Mandarin works translated into English for sharing. If your primary goal for the residency is writing, it’d be nice to plan your writing schedule in advance. The Vermont Studio Center hosts numerous social activities, all structured in a typically American style. Introverts might want to take their own energy levels into account when joining.
Author: Tian Pin-hui (artist name)
Edited: Brix