German artist Juliane Stiegele conducted a two-week workshop at TNUA in November, leading 23 graduate students in an exploration of the theme, "Utopia."
The "Collaborative Process Workshop" concluded with an exhibition on November 15 of the participants' works that demonstrated their interpretations of
"Utopia."
Prof. Stiegele has devoted herself to arts education since 2002, and has taught at higher education institutions for the arts in Germany, Italy, Finland, Turkey and Taiwan.
In 2006 she gave a series of lectures at TNUA, and in 2014 she conducted a cross-boundary workshop,"Warming the City by 1 Degree."
The latest workshop was co-organized by TNUA's Department of New Media and Taipei's Goethe Institut.
With "Utopia" as its theme, the workshop expected the participants, in their capacity as artists, to intervene into urban Taipei's architectural space, and its social and structural reality.
They were given the assignment to create works envisioning lives in the future and the roles that art could play in changing society.
The workshop at TNUA was also an extension of Prof. Stiegele's "Utopia Toolbox," an international art project involving people from various professional fields who like to work together in projects, grow in scale, scope and capacity through collaborative
interdisciplinary work.
Prof. Stiegele stressed that when an artist's work involves public affairs, it has to be responsible to both the general public and the artist himself or herself. The process of the creation and the completed work has to show the artist's social responsibility and commitment to improving society, she said.