Text/ Laba
During my childhood, I happened to acquire a fascinating radio that had both cassette and CD players. Since I couldn't afford cassettes, let alone CDs that cost 300 dollars per piece at the time, I was fortunate that the simple black radio could still operate with free radio stations. Unknowingly, I developed a habit of listening to the radio every day. Invisibly, I witnessed the popular music of 1990s Taiwan. During the endless exams in elementary, junior high, and high school, the music played on the radio accompanied me through countless boring nights. Listening to the music on the radio seemed to immerse me in my own world, and the late-night voices of the DJs made me feel less lonely. The information I received from the radio made me feel like I was at the forefront of pop culture. At least I knew the current popular songs and the trending singers online.
I don't know why, but I had a particular preference for female singers from the 1990s. There was Hsu Ru-yun, who had long hair that covered most of her face when she was young, the short-haired and charismatic Stefanie Sun, the avant-garde Faye Wong whose lyrics I couldn't understand, Coco Lee, the first female singer to wear a belly-baring outfit on a show, and Vivian Hsu, who I wanted to collect all the merchandise related to her albums. There was also Ouyang Feifei, who I often mistook for my grandmother. Besides being representative of their era, their music videos unknowingly documented the changes of the times. For example, Hsu Ru-yun's "I Still Love You" MV featured the transparent BBCALL that I would never use in my lifetime. There was also Faye Wong, who still looks avant-garde today, wearing the famous swan costume in her comprehensive concert. This type of costume could easily become a cheap theatrical rental outfit in Ximending, but when Faye Wong wore it, it was so fashionable. Because of this, I feel that music from a certain period can capture the memories of that time. The most memorable for me is a song by Faye Wong called "Angel." Whenever I hear the intro, it reminds me of the movie "The Mermaid Got Married" starring Kenny Bee and Ekin Cheng, representing the golden era of Hong Kong films in the 1990s in Taiwan.
I have recreated these childhood memories and the popular culture of my youth in my illustration works. I use my preferred visual language to retell the beauty of the 1990s. These visual images happen to belong only to the memories of middle-aged Taiwanese people from the 1990s. In fact, not many people of the same age in Hong Kong know that Chung Lai-tai acted in the "Mermaid" series of films or that you need to eat spicy stir-fried clams before kissing someone. All the works will be exhibited in my favorite Risograph print format, and all the themes are derived from the female singers I got to know through radio programs, who had a profound impact on me in the future. I use music as inspiration for my creativity, retro-ing my innocent era.
Risograph is a printing technique that falls between offset and screen printing, originating from Japan. The first Risograph printer was produced in 1986. Due to its low cost and fast speed, it was favored by schools and organizations for printing monochrome and two-color documents. However, with the popularity of color printers, it has gradually been phased out.