Taipei Performing Arts Center, designed by Rem Koolhaas, officially opened in August 2022.

From the schedule during my time attending Taiwan Art Week 2025, Journey into the Apocalypse (Dark Eyes Performance Lab) seems most challenging. “Materializes the poetic nature of Franz Schubert’s sadly beautiful song Winterreise as it connects contemporary Taiwan with current world developments crises to serve as a fable of civilization and social progress” said the synopsis. Not only should it be bold and experimental, but also political, global politics even, since Schubert’s classical piano piece was altered and rearranged for jazz quartet and sung through the play in Taiwanese language. Conceptually exciting and intriguing indeed.

 90 minutes later at Taipei Performing Arts Center, many of us left the theatre with a weird aftertaste instead. I felt disappointed by the performance, overheard a Western man called it a torture even, but the play’s existence by itself was stirring up my thoughts for days even after I flew back from Taipei.

Journey into the Apocalypse

For a time when Thai commercial theaters are heavily focusing on star-studded musicals (most of them are revivals), even traditional spoken dramas are eagerly neglected, let alone an experimental niche like this intentional referential ambiguous jazz-charged opera-like allegory. Unconventional performances designed with full-scale production quality in mind are deemed unimaginable for Thailand. The closest recent example would be one, just one, experimental site-specific free-form play that had taken over a commercial theater in downtown Bangkok for a haunted walking tour which could happen in any other abandoned buildings or shophouses.

The gap is jarring. Every little production detail of Journey into the Apocalypse was shouting potentials and possibilities of the Taiwanese theater scene, far beyond what most Thai theater artists could ever imagine themselves capable of or have a chance of doing, because of our scene’s limitations. Seeing those hard-earned potentials and possibilities melting down into jumbling voided gestures and empty symbols erupted strong mixed feelings, and drew us critics into the ongoing unfinished conversation about art itself.

Between ‘having’ and ‘lacking’ a better artistic landscape and facilities, what would really shape or help create authentic political nature for art? Surely, we could agree in many conditions that a society too politically settled would make their art too soft tackling the hot topics, but my personal answer is still swaying back and forth each time confronting this very question.

The Man Who Couldn’t Leave (2022), first ever winner of Venice immersive (the newest section of Venice International Film Festival, entirely devoted to all extended reality (XR) means of creative expression), produced by Taiwan’s National Human Rights Museum. 

Witnessing a series of unsettled political situations, many have said Thailand still can’t get rid of certain oppressive forces because we’re not angry enough. I find the sentiment agreeable yet irritating. When we say South Koreans were angry enough so democracy and freedom claim victory (often citing Gwangju uprising and Yoon Suk Yeol’s impeachment as examples) believing that makes very much sense, aren’t the people of Myanmar or Palestine being angry more than enough? Does anger, passion or strong-will really matter? Or should that be the question of certain ‘having’ and ‘lacking’?

Often the conversation could lead us to cautious ideals about artistic landscape such as censorship collaterally helps sophisticating aesthetics or political/societal havoc would create a wave of challenging artists. ‘Lacking’ is better for art, to rephrase, because more creative effort is required. However, 38 years of martial law and oppression definitely is lacking for Taiwanese art to tackle politics, stonewalling them from showing or openly criticizing White Terror atrocities in the same fashion with The Man Who Couldn’t Leave (directed by Singing Chen, 2022) or Cinderfella (The Party Theatre Group).

Cinderfella, a solo performance chronicling and paralleling queer political experiences from two significant generations: 
The White Terror and The Sunflower.

Taiwanese artistic landscape is now presented (and justifiably considered) during #TaiwanWeek2025 as ‘having’ a lot including artistic facilities, freedom of speech, resources, state support and the historical consensus (to a certain degree). As programmed and promoted to us, having all mentioned above not only compensates Taiwan long overdue political narratives but also provides aesthetical ranges. From ambiguous experimental to classical grandiose, from indigenous pride to sexually explicit queer intimacy, from animistic spirituality to immersive virtual technology, from local to global. Clearly an agenda but produced and presented with values of aesthetics, vision and innovation rather than just campaigning. The upside of abundance done right and tangible, paralleling their recent national filmography where the film world has already seen filmmakers from Malaysia, Myanmar or Singapore completed their challenging political works from within the Taiwanese ecosystem.

Certain kinds of practice and work from settled landscapes usually get criticized for taking what they have for granted—sacrificing their hearts, ideals, sincerity or authenticity for apathy, external agenda or commodification. While diversity and progressive tokens tossing around in today’s zeitgeist may add even more coherence to the accusation, the intersectionality between ‘having’ and ‘lacking’ still continues to blur what seems like an idealistic boundary. Strong sense of lacking could usher in fighting spirits to earn any potential and possibilities whether with resilience or sheer obstinance, yet some illusions of established rosy paths could become so thorny that we instead crave deficiency; lacking ourselves down an unnecessary dirt road in order to gain back the sense of having.

Announced at Festival de Cannes by five Scandinavian filmmakers, Dogma 25 (updated collective manifesto of Dogme 95, a filmmaking movement founded to preserve the originality of cinema) sounds like a perfect head-spinning addition to this looming conversation in years to come, either as popular resistance or radical farce.

Mongrel (2024), written and directed by Singaporean filmmaker CHIANG Wei-Liang with Thai actor Wanlop Rungkamjad portraying its main character, this Taiwanese film went on to win Special Mention in Camera D’Or prize from Festival De Cannes in 2024.

Our particular conversation regarding secured landscapes sparked from the clean slate of works shown to us, also secondary information plus criticisms toward Taiwan gathered from previous exchanges with my fellow Southeast and East (including Taiwan) Asian art observers alike. Once I heard that some Taiwanese attendees perceive us Southeast Asians as bolder and more radical than their compatriots, the compliment was thankfully received here yet somehow giving me an awkward honour.

I have always considered Thailand as still ‘lacking’ in terms of propriety. However, contrary to the hypothesis, we have also been criticized simultaneously from outsiders and ourselves for being too reserved, especially during our heated years of political turmoil. On various occasions, the role of aforementioned attendees would be mine; perceiving that practitioners and observers from different ecosystems with less freedom or facilities must be bolder, embedded with stronger fighting spirit.

Rough edges and hard punches might seem lacking in Taiwan but obviously, like any other places, there must be a bunch of hidden or overlooked artists who really challenge; those with preconceptions deeming Taiwanese queer media relatively dull or too polite would get shocked by In the Mist (directed by CHOU Tung-Yen, 2020). Either categorized as ‘having’ or ‘lacking’, the search for missing angst, guts or true grit would eventually emerge as common obstacles we are all facing.

In the Mist (2020), when gay sauna experiences are exposed and explored in explicit manner through extended reality (XR) gaze. 

 From one politiqueer solo performance to the Observers Forum where Southeast Asian and Taiwanese panelists share observations upon their registered artistic landscapes, two separate moments during the week mysteriously connected then become a perfect emblem for this whole argument. Cinderfella gave the White Terror past gut-wrenching blows but merely suggested forgiveness and sudden reconciliation when it comes to the Sunflower present; this compromising endnote resonates deeply with the reluctance among Taiwanese panelists during the forum’s Q&A before addressing a dilemma about the hovering Team Taiwan mindset.

Since we are inclined to treat scars differently from fresh cuts or bruises, this very nature boils down to one keyword: Anxiety. My comprehension following further elaboration, from a critic/journalist perspective, is that Team Taiwan mindset leans itself on national identity through supposed collectivity of cultural practitioners and observers; some punches should be pulled after so-called subconscious pressure of being an appropriate part of the whole. An anxiety to preserve or protect any conditions perceived as beneficial for the ecosystem, all too familiar somehow I could call it Team Thailand mentality.

2025 Observers Forum brings together arts critics from Taiwan and Southeast Asian countries to exchange their experiences.

 I have always admired Taiwanese quality of viewership access and supportive resources around it and was not surprised why ‘having’ secured cultural sectors is crucial to their national identity, especially when surrounded and/or threatened by Japan, South Korea and China. Like a mirror reflection to Thai insecurities and deeply unsettled landscape, our punches were pulled to keep what we can cling on to: a desperate attempt of being marketable and commodifiable, hence being taken seriously, when economic profits and box-office figures decide which kind of cultural sectors deserve to be part of our national identity.

Confronting the question this time, definitive answers are yet to be found but somehow slightly felt. Ironically, those collective nature similar to Team Taiwan mindset and Team Thailand mentality could be one of them; after being dismantled before a needed considerable amount of reimagination.