This is a film in which I portrait 8 people who cross lives. The characters have never met each other before. Through a few photo’s given by a stranger, they fabricate the memory of how they unconsciously met.

Since the beginning, my work has often used feminine subject as the target for portrayal. (Femininity does not only refer to gender.) It is a vessel for subject interpellation and substitution. When I’m portraying the subject, what attracts me is the “distance” between the subject and myself. This distance cannot be physically measured. Rather, it is an exchange of the spiritual, a path for mutual empathy.

In the piece called “We’ll Meet At 8 PM, July 28, 2011” (2011), I also used “meeting” as the entry point. In it, the meeting place changed from fictional to real. But in the piece called “Even They Never Met” (2012), the meeting place is a place that had never existed. The Verbal replaces the corporeal entity. Compared with my earlier pieces “ When I getting older with you“(2009) and “10 Minutes Left” (2007), the idea of “meeting“ can be said to have evolved into a “mutual gaze”. These two pieces.. are both asking: “What kind of gaze is real?”

Maybe it is because I have felt deeply about the experience of that kind of exchange, that’s why the interpel- lation always comes in different forms.Just like this photograph. Right at the moment when the shutter is re- leased, the flash blinds us. Though we share the same time and space, we cannot see each other.

If we forget where we have been, then the physical markers ‘s existence becomes meaningless.

< 即使她們從未相見 > 是 2011 年在洛杉磯駐村時所做的計畫。在出發前，我挑選生活週遭四 位女性 友人，請她們提供一張照片，至美國駐村後，請四位當地女性，個別從這從這幾張照 片選其一，並對這位陌生的台灣女子，以「她們見過面，並瞭解對方」為前提，做一段假設 行的敘述。待駐村結束，回台灣後，再請台灣女子，針對挑選她的美國女性，以同樣方式描 述，最後將這兩邊的訪談紀錄交錯 剪接，使其看起來打破時空對話。

過去至今我的作品常以陰性主體作為描繪(拍攝)對象(在此陰性非單指性別)，他是一種召喚及替補的載體。當在描繪這個對象時，吸引我的是我與他的「距離」，這距離無法用物質計算，是精神心靈上的交換、來回感應的路徑。

在去年 (2011) 的作品 < 我們約在 2011 年 7 月 28 日晚上八點見面 >，也以「相見」為切入的動作， 那件作品相見場域從虛擬轉為實體，而在這件作品中，相見場域在一個沒有存在過的現場，口述話語 取代了實體肉身。追溯至過去作品<當我和你老去>和<10 Minutes Left>中的 恆久凝視，這種「相見」可進轉為「互相凝望」，因此在這兩件作品中同時提問:怎樣的凝望是真實的?

或是我曾經深刻感受過那樣的交會，因此他不斷以不同形式召喚回來。

NIU,JUN-QIANG was born in 1983. He graduated with MFA in New Media Art from Taipei National University of the Arts. His artworks mainly focus on the video, film and mixed media installations. He is also the assistance professor of Communication of design in Shih Chien University, and director with Association of the Visual Arts in Taiwan (AVAT).

During the creative process, Niu has investigated the incredible relations between materiality and spirituality which in our life consciousness from the individuals to groups. He has worked with different sorts of participants to narrate their past experiences for the creation of a more united, joint experience.

Niu Jun Qiang’s artworks have been featured in the short film competition at the Rotterdam International Film Festival (the Netherlands), Osmosis Audiovisual Media festival (U.K.), Pixilerations Tech Art Exhibition (U.S.A.), the Aguilar International Short Film Festival (Spain), Tours Asian Film Festival (France), ARTchSO Video Festival in Rennes (France), It Takes Four Sorts: Cross-Strait Four-region Artistic Exchange Project (Taiwan, Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau, Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival,Taipei Arts Awards in Taipei…etc). His works also had been showed in Paris, Berlin, Istanbul, Tel Aviv, Mexico, Seoul, Beijing, Shenzhen. He won the 53rd Worldfest-Houston, Remi Award, Experimental Film & Video Art Film, 2020.