Talking Taiwan Ep 282 | Isa Ho: Talks About her Career as a Photographer and her Westbeth Exhibit in NYC
Isa Ho is a photographer based in Taiwan. Last year I spoke with her about her photography and the Westbeth project, which consists of a series of photos and videos of artists who live at Westbeth Artists Housing, which is located in New York City’s West Village.
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Westbeth is so named because it sits at the corner of West and Bethune Streets, and was conceived in the 1960's as a partial solution to the acute need to provide affordable housing and studios for artists and their families.
The abandoned 13-building complex that was constructed between the 1860s and the 1930s, was formerly used by Bell Telephone Labs, and was turned into affordable permanent housing and workspace for hundreds of artists, as well as space for arts and cultural organizations. Westbeth was the first subsidized housing for artists in the United States. In 2009 it was added to the National Registrar of Historic Places. And in 2011 the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission unanimously designated Westbeth Artists Housing a New York City landmark.
Here’s a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:
· Isa’s exhibit at the Westbeth gallery that features her photos and videos of artists who reside at Westbeth
· How Isa is working on a documentary about the residents of Westbeth
· How Isa arrived for a residency at Westbeth in 2013 after Hurricane Sandy
· The residency project that brought Isa to Westbeth was initially about multicultural New York but as she got to know many of the people who lived at Westbeth, it became the Westbeth project
· Isa’s connection to Taiwan
· How Isa is fascinated by people
· Isa has interviewed over 50 people and what was on display at the Westbeth gallery is only a third of her work
· The personal stories of several of the artist who live at Westbeth
· How the photos and videos were displayed at the Westbeth gallery
· How the Westbeth project has been exhibited in Israel, Italy, Germany and Taiwan
· How people have reacted to the Westbeth project
· How one of the pieces of the Westbeth project won an award in Italy
· How Isa got interested in photography
· How Isa creates a collage of photos that serve to tell a person’s story
· How Isa does her photography full-time
· Isa’s advice to those interested in pursuing photography
· Isa’s video comparing the movements of Kunqu opera dancer and K-POP dancer
· Why Isa is planning to go to Ukraine
· How Isa felt useless as an artist during the pandemic but realized that when facing tragedy or if feeling like there is nothing that we can do, art can connect us with humanity
· How there aren’t many housing communities like Westbeth in the world
· The wait list of people who want to live at Westbeth
· How one of the Westbeth residents George Cominskie has advocated for artists
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