Taipei, Nov. 23 (CNA) The 2023 Human Rights Festival, set to open in early December, will begin with a live concert featuring award-winning and up-and-coming artists from Taiwan’s independent music scene, according to the main organizer, the National Human Rights Museum.
The concert, to be held at the Jing-Mei White Terror Memorial Park in New Taipei next Saturday evening, will be kicked off by Hakka singer-songwriter Wen Yin-chang (溫尹嫦), who is better known by her stage name Misa, the curator of the festival Yen Hung-ya (閻鴻亞) told a press event on Wednesday.
Wen, praised by critics for her poetic lyricism, won her first Golden Melody Best Hakka Album and Best Hakka Singer awards in 2020 for “The Ship of Fools (戇仔船).”
Following Wen’s set, another Golden Melody winner Balai (巴賴) will take to the stage and put on a performance inspired by his Taitung County hometown and in his mother tongue, the Paiwan language.
Other artists on the lineup are Wang Yu-jun (王榆鈞), who has frequently fused her music with artistic projects and TUDI-VOICE (農村武裝青年), or Armed Youth, a rock band known for weaving its activism into music.
The artists selected for the opening show have often explored the issues of “human survival” and “the right to live” in their work, said Yen, who is better known as Hung Hung (鴻鴻).
Through the creations of this young generation of artists, who were all born after the lifting of martial law in Taiwan in 1987, stories from the White Terror era – a period of political repression by the Kuomintang government from 1949-1992 – can be memorialized and passed on, Yen said.
The two-month event will also touch upon human rights issues concerning Indigenous and disadvantaged people in Taiwan, as well as pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong through a selection of theatrical shows, dance performances, screenings and a photo exhibition, he added.
The photo exhibition titled “Shooting as Disclosing-PAN Hsiao-Hsia x KO Chung -Ming” brings together decades of works by Taiwanese photographer Pan Hsiao-hsia (潘小俠), who passed away in July, and his counterpart from Hong Kong Ko Chung-ming (高仲明).
Both Pan and Ko have used their photography to gently light up those living in the shadows, such as homeless people, residents in rural and often impoverished areas, and masked protesters, Beatrice Hsieh (謝佩霓), curator of the exhibition, said during a brief interview with CNA.
Their works, Hsieh went on, have not only captured “decisive moments” and fulfilled the “newsiness” required in documentary photography but also demonstrated skill and artistry.
Meanwhile, Taiwanese troupe One Player Short Ensemble (三缺一劇團) will stage their new show “Son of Formosa (來自清水的孩子),” an adaption of a four-volume comic book of the same title about former political prisoner of the White Terror era Tsai Kun-lin (蔡焜霖), who passed away in September.
The show, suitable for children aged seven and over, will tell the story of Tsai, especially his love of books, through a performance incorporating puppets and other objects — techniques used frequently by the Taiwan-based group, director and playwright Ho Hsiang-yi (賀湘儀) told CNA.
Tsai’s life was intertwined with books, Ho said, pointing to how he was imprisoned for taking part in a reading club and how he founded a children’s magazine 10 years later, after being released.
Despite what he had been through, Tsai remained warm-hearted and committed to sharing books with others, the director said, noting that that was the message the show seeks to convey.
All of the shows at the festival, which will run through Jan. 14, 2024, are free, but visitors are required to register on the event website.