In a few hours, Easter festivities will begin. Outside, nature is in bloom. We yearn to go outdoors – and spend time with each other, to see those we hold dear – friends and family. That’s what we used to do. That’s how it always was. 

But this year, everything is different.

(Televised address by Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on the coronavirus pandemic at Schloss Bellevue, on 11 April 2020)

It all started in December 2019. Several unexplained pneumonia cases have occurred in Wuhan and suddenly spread rapidly in other cities and around the globe. In January 2020, the Chinese officials announced that its pathogen was the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, and confirmed that it could effectively spread from person to person. The entire transmission process is not fully understood; yet, by case investigation and experimental testing, we have found that the virus could spread through close droplets and secretions that will directly or indirectly increase the risk of infection.

Since then, people have been forced to draw a clear line, and 2 meters has become the new standard social distancing scale. Human beings abandon the fundamental custom of gathering and social life. Countries have also initiated corresponding anti-epidemic policies to prevent the undirected flow of large numbers of people. Therefore, border control, lockdown and social distancing have become the trending keywords sweeping the global network at an explosive speed in a flash. Countries, cities, households and individuals have transformed into lonely islands of various sizes and shapes. There is a no longer personal fate, only collective experience. In the crevice of survival, people experience the shared emotions of the global plague, experience separation and exile, as well as the fear and reaction entrained by the two. 

At the moment of 2021, we have entered the post-epidemic era. In the time, and every change can be entitled “post,” which is often a prefix for compound words. It usually refers to a specific situation or incident as well the following particular phenomenon or concept will soon become the new normal. One’s trauma and separation between loved ones in life or death are abnormal under the era. Does it mean the paths from non-normal to normal is the partial process that never ceases to oscillate and balance between positive and negative? And could we use the unusual conditions to push our vision to the limit, a scene that humans have never seen before?

The Very Crowded group exhibition is a reflection of many caring for reality. In the past two years, we have seen tremendous changes in the art world, which indirectly or directly caused the various units covered below to be impacted by different forms. A new meaning will endow to the ordeal as time goes by. We who now have experienced the raging pandemic need to rethink the various conditions on which mankind depends for survival. As we enter the new normal, we will again focus on the assemble factors and derivation effects of art cluster and condense consciousness, knowledge, information, and emotional exchanges inward. That is to say, using art as one of the methods to sort out modern society. The epidemic will always go away; the new normal is coming. The group exhibition, Very Crowded, gathers 23 contemporary Taiwanese artists, aiming for self-settling practice in these critical moments.

Let us gathered for art and plant seedlings of hope in our hearts.