Hsu Chia-Wei employs visually stunning videos and installations to depict complex stories not found in official Asian histories. These narratives, based on meticulous research, illuminate the histories of individuals tossed on turbulent political and social tides, and fragments of history hitherto neglected or missing from conventional accounts.

This screening aims to unravel the hidden narratives of the Industrial Research Institute of the Taiwan Governor-General’s Office during the Japanese colonial era, or tell a story of a man who led successive lives as a spy, orphanage director, and minister, in a village near the Thai-Burmese border during the Cold War.

Gathering regional memories and scattered resource material threatened by, or lost to industrialization, urbanization, and aging of the people involved, Hsu reminds us of the complexity and diversity of our world, and the unreliability of memory.