Creative Fusion: No Limit, but a Multiplicity of Possibilities / Jia-Hua “DuDu Zhan / Hsinchu City, Taiwan / Center for Arts-Inspired Learning

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Taiwanese installation artist and digital engineer, Jia-Hua Zhan will arrive on her first visit to the United States with an extensive and captivating portfolio full of free-thinking constructions, 3-D interactive inventions, participatory collage, as well as virtual body movement installations. She will import a dynamic crusade for social engagement, both virtual and spiritual. Of digital space, Jia-Hua Zhan offers, ”there is no limit,” but rather, “a multiplicity of possibilities.”

Her installation, Luminiferous Sound Objects in the Darkness, Squeezing Citizenship, is produced with the participation of the citizens who had been involved in social movements through 3D body scanning, 3D printing, and sound recording. With the assistance of audio mixer and pressure-sensing devices, this work allows the viewers to feel the vivid oppressive atmosphere by their tactile sense.

Of this work, DuDu Zhan, (as she prefers to be called) says, “Squeezing Citizenship serves as a vehicle that retrospectively carries the citizens who had ever been part of social movements to the body memory (postures) at the very moment of demonstration… prompting more people to review the disputes and conflicts that occurred on this land, and to pay attention to the rights and obligations of civil disobedience, thereby awakening them to the fact that their articulation through social movements will become the rays of light that illuminate this land.”

As an industry mentor at the University of Taipei, teaching the Theory of New Media, the young artist says, “We discussed the spirit of interactive works. I can design content for any level. I can design for elementary students. I think that interactive and New Media Art are a great way to participate with youth.”

These words come as music to the ears of The Center for Arts-Inspired Learning, the Creative Fusion host organization for Jia-Hua Zhan.

“This will definitely not be a passive experience for the students,” enthuses Joe Ionna, Education Manager for the busy center.  He adds, “The Creative Fusion Program is one of the highlights of my job. We believe this collaboration will breathe further life into our curriculum as it migrates to the digital realm.” Jia-Hua Zhan, in cooperation with the center, will be bringing her interactive projects and vision to area schools.

The Center for Arts-Inspired learning is a multi-faceted, arts-educational organization celebrating its 62nd year. Jia-Hua Zhan will be the fifth artist they have hosted.

Other digital projects the center has developed include, game design, digital story-telling as well as 3-D printing, among many others.

Ionna feels that this unique partnership with Du Du Zhan will, not only provide further professional development for the staff, “It could also ignite the imaginations of the schools, and hopefully the artist herself.”