Out now: “Making Space: Independent Artist Initiatives in Taiwan since 1988”
In September 2026, the sixteenth book of the Afterall series Exhibition Histories was published: Making Space: Independent Artist Initiatives in Taiwan since 1988.
Since 2023, the documenta Institut has been in partnership with the Afterall Research Center at the University of the Arts London. As part of this partnership, Prof. Dr. Mi You and Prof. Dr. Felix Vogel from the documenta Institut are members of the editorial team for Exhibition Histories.
Afterall’s Exhibition Histories book series, published since 2010, addresses what happens when art becomes public. Research led, it is committed to presenting a plurality of voices and critical perspectives, while bringing archival and other primary materials to bear on current and future practice.
Making Space: Independent Artist Initiatives in Taiwan since 1988
As Taiwan transitioned from martial law, space became a new ground for artistic experimentation. On their own terms, artists reclaimed private apartments, vacant buildings and commercial premises to forge independent venues for radical exhibitions, curatorial experiments, community gatherings and new discourses. What had been called ‘extra-institutional artistic practice’ gradually expanded to reinvent independent art spaces themselves, with wide-ranging implications: from local river ecologies to public policy. Making Space: Independent Artist Initiatives in Taiwan since 1988 explores how Taiwan’s ‘avant-garde’ art transformed into what we now recognise as ‘contemporary art’, and where independent curatorial practice, led by artists, first took root.
Contributors include Wing Chan, Chen Hui-Chiao, Chen Shui-Tsai, Chou Yung-Chong, Chuang Hsiu-Hui, Dondon Hounwn, Marvin Minto Fang, Fiona Yu-Lun Hsu, Hsu Yuan-Ta, Hsueh Yung, Hwang Wey-Jeng, Jun T. Lai, Lee Jiun-Shyan, Li Wan-Ning, Lien Teh-Cheng, Lin Huang-Ti, Lin Pey-Chwen, Lu Wei-Lun, Tsong Pu, Tu Wei, Nicole Wang, Wang Pin-Hua, Wang Te-Yu, Wang Ya-Lun, Wong Bang-Rong, Wu Mali, Emily Shih-Chih Yang, Yeh Hsing-Jou and Yu Wei. Edited by Nicole Wang.
Project partners: Asia Art Archive, based in Hong Kong; the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, New York; documenta Institut, Kassel; and the Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts, University of Gothenburg. This publication is an extended result of Asia Art Archive’s research project Independent Art Spaces of Taiwan.
More info here.