Nineteenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

Art biennials as socially engaging art strategies have now been widely used in the global artistic field, for transforming locals by alternative art and served as creative city tools appealing to art tourists. Currently the biennales no longer just stay in large cities-but also happened in islands, borders and rural areas-from Satouchi, Manifesta to Matsu. This paper focuses on Matsu Art Biennial of Taiwan held in military frontier archipelagos of Taiwan during Cold War between Taiwan and China, and also a border island with different migrant and religious history. Bathed with special weather and geographical conditions, military heritage and fishing food culture, Matsu provide special ‘affordances’ historically, geographically and culturally, for artistic engagement. Themed as Island’s brew and Ruby red after summer, Matsu biennial emphasis on the food and wine culture, linking nature with culture, bringing out the natural affordances many biennials in cities neglect. Drawing upon Bourdieu, Latour and socially engaged theories, this paper considers Matsu art biennale appropriate military island background as new strategies to compete in the global artistic biennale field with four mobile affordances from migration religious memories, military historic heritage, weather and transportation, to geology of rocky archipelagos on the sea. These affordances and cross-disciplinary attempts provide the creative base for socially engaging art projects. By examining the curating strategies, chosen artworks, responses of residents, visitors and artists collected by interviews, fieldwork and media representation, this paper will discuss issues of biennale studies, socially engaging art and art in the society.