Artist and photographer Professor Claudia Terstappen gave a talk on “The Language of Objects” and shared her research of the last 25 years with the UIC audience on 14 January.
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| Prof Claudia Terstappen with President Ng Ching-fai |
Prof Terstappen has lived and worked in Germany, the UK, Spain and Australia. “Travelling is a big part of my work,” she said. “With so much travel I became interested in how people express beliefs and how they receive certain energies from believing in particular things; not just religious beliefs, but also any other belief like superstition, places people go to, and objects that are charged with energies.”
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| Prof Claudia Terstappen giving a talk on “The Language of Objects” |
She first presented some of her photos and film stills that focus on religions and sacred activities, and showed her spectacular images of bush fires, which play a significant cultural and spiritual role in Aborigines’ life. To extend her topic, she played a video where a deaf man uses sign language to convey words meaning imagination, fantasy, dream and the likes.
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| Prof Claudia Terstappen being shown around by Prof Chih-Yung Aaron Chiu |
“[When taking these photos and shooting the films] I was looking at the inadequacy of verbal languages. I was exploring how to code and decode certain languages whether they are an image language, a word language or objects that we communicate with to replace our language.”
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| Prof Claudia Terstappen visited the House of Qin (guqin) |
Prof Terstappen also introduced some of her exhibitions where she put together photos and film stills she took of natural and man-made altars, cemeteries, and ritual ceremonies in different countries and regions like Mexico, Indonesia and Hong Kong. She believes these bring interesting dialogues and represent an image or vision language.
She concluded her talk by taking a scientific look at the bullfighting culture in Spain and the interrelationship between the animals and art.
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| A student of Shedao (Chinese archery) |
Her talk was attended by UIC President Prof Ng Ching-Fai, Vice President Prof Zee Sze Yong, Interim Dean of the Division of Culture and Creativity Prof Chih-Yung Aaron Chiu, Dean of the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences Prof Mei-hwa Sung, Associate Dean of DHSS Prof Evelyn Mai, Director of General Education Office Prof Mildred Yang, Programme Director of Culture, Creativity and Management Dr Purrie Ng, Programme Director of Public Relations and Advertising Dr Fan Hu, Programme Director of Applied Translation Studies Dr Dawn Tsang, Director of International Development Office Dr Katharina Yu, Lecturer of the English Language Centre and artist Craig Voligny, and many other staff members and students.
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| Outside the House of Shedao (Chinese archery) |
After her talk, Prof Claudia Terstappen and Dr Sunny Wang, from the Academy of Visual Arts of Hong Kong Baptist University, visited the House of Qin (guqin), the House of Shedao (Chinese archery), the Learning Resource Centre, the Shadow Puppet Drama Pavilion and the Cinema and Television Studios.
Reporter: Deen He (MPRO)
Editor: Samuel Burgess (MPRO)
Photographer: Simon (MPRO)
(with special thanks to the ELC)
