Wei Ze

Born in 1985 in Taiwan, Wei Ze majors in Fine Arts (Western Painting) and History at National Taiwan Normal University. Later on, she went to École supérieure d'art et de design de Marseille-Méditerranée and obtained the “Diplôme National Supérieur d'Expression Plastique” in 2016. Currently, she is living and working in Taiwan and Berlin, German. The sources of her works are historical recontextualization, counterfactual history, and their relevance to the contemporary world. By using different media and theoretical research for her creative projects, she aims to explore global current affairs and develop points of view on different issues.

Most of the themes in her works are delved into from her place of residence and life experiences. All creative projects are composed of plural works with topics presented in media of different fields. The projects are complemented by the concepts of “territory-boundary”, such as globalization, mankind migration, and separation and difference. Her recent works are “Négraille”, “Ani series”, and “Biography of Ho Xuan Huong”. Nominated for the Taipei Fine Art Award in 2016, she was invited to hold solo exhibitions in G Gallery, la Garde, southern France, in 2017, and Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, Germany, in 2018. In the same year, her works were also selected for "MADE in TAIWAN - Young Artist Discovery" at the ART TAIPEI art fair. Her works have been exhibited in the History Museum of Marseille, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Yvon Lambert Foundation of Avignon, Pier-2 Art Center in Kaohsiung, and Bastille Design Center in Paris. 

2021 "Unregistered Babies"

Unregistered babies refer to children born in Taiwan by foreign migrant workers. They are the non-Taiwanese children who are left stranded as their parents are unknown or lost contact, who cannot register their identities, or whose births are registered with the nationality of their biological father or mother. Due to the fact of not having Taiwanese nationality, they are unable to be provided with the same medical, social-welfare, and education care as Taiwanese children. Within the context of cross-border movements by migrant workers in Taiwan, they are restricted by contract expiration. Being alone in Taiwan and having a very unstable life, they may probably need to change the country to live in after the three-year contract expires, which is why they can't have long-term projects, not to mention long-term plans for the rest of their life. Under such a circumstance, basic emotional and sexual needs are not guaranteed. It is even expressly stipulated by Taiwan's laws not to encourage pregnancy and births among migrant workers. Thus, the foreign migrant workers lack pregnancy and birth protection during their employment in Taiwan, and even worse, the female migrant workers may lose their employment opportunities in Taiwan and be deported back to their home country because of pregnancy. 

However, emotional longings and sexual desires are the basic biological and psychological needs, especially for foreign migrant workers in their young and middle-aged adulthood. It is impossible to suppress these instinctive impulses, and the laws and regulations are never in line with the changes in the actual situation. Not only can they not guarantee the basic human rights of the migrant workers, but also for them to find a way out due to the strict restrictions. This is something that the locals in the mainstream of society cannot imagine. The Taiwanese society neglects the basic human rights of migrant workers in Taiwan through unfair treatment. Such a treatment of unjust may lead to further discrimination and differential treatment and will be inherited by the next generation if nothing is done about it. 

Based on this issue, Wei Ze is conducting the data collection and study.

2022 "Demigod"

As the continuation of the previous stage, Wei Ze believes that the emotional experiences of the migrant workers' movements and the contexts that have led to unregistered babies can help in the construction of a work's narrative framework. Thus, the study at this stage has its attention on the work and living space of the migrant workers in Taiwan, as well as the identity and social welfare guarantee offered by the laws, the assistance and support from the private institutions, and the differences compared to the society in the home country; also, a comparison shall be made with the labor conditions of the local Taiwanese. In this way, special characteristics in terms of time and space can be compiled so that we can see the uniqueness given to the love and sexual stories produced under this circumstance. 

Apart from the in-person field study, We Zei is also collecting extensively the existing relevant literature and materials and the image creations. In fact, there are already results of different phases regarding the human right care movement of migrant workers and new immigrants in Taiwan as different social activists, scholars, and creators have been studying and working on this issue. A considerable amount of files are being accumulated and compiled. All the documents and works have allowed her to have a deeper understanding of the migrant workers’ emotional stories as well as the real cases of unregistered babies in Taiwan within a limited time frame, triggering a certain level of inspiration toward the constitution of her creative project.

In 2022, based on this foundation, Wei Ze is still collecting the real cases of unregistered babies and extending them into Southeast Asian mythologies from an artistic perspective. They will be taken as references for the fiction/reality development of her future works.