YA-CHU KANG VISUAL ART: The Room of Her Own

展覽日期Date／2012.4.28－6.17

展出地點 Venue／高雄駁二藝術特區自行車倉庫(高雄市鹽埕區大勇路1號)

The Pier-2 Art Center, Bicycle Warehouse

主辦單位Organized by／高雄市政府文化局‧駁二藝術特區

策展人 Curator／謝慧青 Hui-Ching Hsieh

協同策展人Co-curator／彭佳慧 Jia-Huei Peng

「如果一個女人要寫作，就必須有收入和一個自己的房間。」維吉尼亞‧吳爾芙在她的小說《一個人的房間》（A Room of One's Own）中，所宣示的是，女性要進行創作，必須擁有不僅是具體而實在的獨立空間，也需擁有象徵不被打擾的自由心靈空間。

四月底即將在駁二藝術特區自行車倉庫開展的「女人們的白色房間」，是由高雄市政府文化局所主辦，由策展人謝慧青、彭佳慧、游婷敬所共同策畫，邀請了台灣與香港共十七位女性藝術創作者參展。展覽包括一個當代藝術聯展以及一個影展，藝術家們在白色色調為主的展場空間中，透過作品訴說著女人們的生命故事，呈現視覺上的美感風格。作品在纖細中蘊含著細膩豐富的情感，彰顯女性藝術家創作的獨特風貌，進而表現女性堅韌強大的內在力量。

「女人們的白色房間」展覽中，當代藝術家作品以裝置藝術為主，女性藝術家以白色為基調，選擇的材質包括：紙、白瓷、纖維、布料、石膏、絲瓜、鋼刷、洗衣夾等等媒材創作。這些媒材都是女性生活中經常接觸使用的材料；在創作的同時，藝術家們也將自己的生命故事與生活點滴、串連編織進作品之中，訴說一個個隱晦而又動人的人生故事。

A Woman Must Have a room of Her Own

By Hui-Ching Hsieh and Jia-Huei Peng

“The Room of Her Own” event includes a group exhibition of contemporary art work and a film festival. Female artists from Taiwan and Hong Kong were invited to participate and the organizers provided a display space designed to facilitate interaction and dialogue between their works. In this context, the artists focused on the life experiences of women. The combination of refinement and richness of emotion evident in the pieces on display showcased the visual aesthetic style of the work, while also highlighting the unique nature, inner strength and tenacity of female artists. In this contemporary art venue, the artists embraced white as their keynote color, choosing to work with a wide range of materials, including paper, white porcelain, fiber, cloth, plaster-of-Paris and sponge gourds - all items that women encounter on a daily basis. The different works related deeply moving stories that are usually hidden from view.

In the book A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf alludes to the fact that women at home tend not to have their own study or the social standing they deserve, nor do they have the same educational or employment opportunities as men. As a result, female questions and ways of thinking are often submerged in household chores and lost in the flow of historical narrative. What Woolf implied when she said women needed “A room of their own” was that if they are to create then women need not only a concrete and independent space, they also require a free spiritual space where they cannot be disturbed.

This exhibition asks visitors to make the connection from “a room of one’s own” to “The Room of Her Own” because it is the journey from one to the other that allows the artists to blossom in the white display rooms. Within these four walls they can create art, read, think, space out, they can even lock the door and indulge themselves. Visitors are encouraged to linger in the rooms and just soak up the spiritual awakening on offer there.