Description

ILHAM is delighted to present Jungle Jungle, an exhibition by Taiwanese artist Zhang Xu Zhan. This marks the first time that the work of Zhang Xu Zhan, who was the Deutsche Bank’s Artist of the Year for 2021, is being shown in Malaysia.

First exhibited at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Jungle Jungle features the film Compound Eyes of Tropical, which won the Golden Horse Award for best animated short film in 2022. Other works in the exhibition include video animation and mixed media sculptures, as well as paper puppets and a site-specific paper installation, inspired by Taiwan's traditional cultural technique known as "huzhi (糊紙)" (papier-mâché), which is commonly used in ceremonial festivals.

Jungle Jungle explores the commonality and plurality between different cultures, examining the way the meaning of music can change in circulation and the way oral stories and folk tales can adapt in different regions to produce localised versions.

While participating in an artist residency programme in Indonesia, the artist came across the Southeast Asian folktale Sang Kancil and the Crocodiles. The folktale, about a clever mousedeer who manages to outwit his enemies, has similarities with folktales from other parts of Asia. The artist explores this commonality by adapting the original story with elements from similar folktales such as The Mouse and the Buffalo from the artist’s homeland Taiwan, and The Rabbit and the Crab from China, among others. The imagery of different animal forms rapidly interchanging expands the space for interpretation and opens up the exploration of global connection through the textual similarity of folk tales.

The audience views the narrative through the vision of the fly’s compound eye, where the folktale represents a form of container, filled with symbolic metaphors such as the mirror and shadows. Instead of telling a single original story, the folktale is viewed through multiple perspectives, reflecting the flow of culture, and the interconnections and affinities between humans and animals.

Exhibition producer Chen Hsiang-Wen
Art coordinator Chan Yu-Chu
Assistant Chen Liang-Jie
Sound design Feng Zi-Ming

Date: 23rd June to 6th October 2024
Time: Tuesday - Saturday: 11 AM - 6:30 PM.
Venue: Ilham Gallery