Taiwan artists dazzled crowds at Swiss comics festival

2023/05/16

Six artists from Taiwan showcased their work at Lausanne Comic Strip Festival held May 1-14 in Switzerland, strengthening international awareness of the country’s vibrant arts and publishing sectors.
 
With the support of the Taiwan Cultural Center in Paris, comic artists Sean Chuang, Ding Pao-yen, Li Lung-chieh, Lin Li-chin, Zhou Jian-xin and Zuo Hsuan participated in three days of book signing activities and two roundtable seminars during the festival. Organizers of BDFIL, the commonly used abbreviation based on the event’s French name Festival de Bande Dessinee Lausanne, accorded Taiwan a place of honor this year as the first guest country in the festival’s 18 years.
 
According to the Ministry of Culture, the festival is an excellent opportunity to present Taiwan to European audiences. One of the highlighted artists is Zuo Hsuan, who puts her exquisite and immensely detailed yet clean style to work to illustrate everyday life in Taiwan through works such as “The Summer Temple Fair” and “What She Put on the Table.”
 
A roundtable discussion of historical perspectives on Taiwan comics, which was attended by Chou, Li, Lin and guest country curator Paul Gravett, provided further insight into the country’s culture. Another seminar on the present and future of Taiwan’s visual arts development included Chuang, Ding, Zuo and Mandarin comics expert Norbert Danysz.
 
The event also involved the screening of three animated short films: “Girl in the Water” by Huang Shi-rou, “Night Bus” by Joe Hsieh and “The Egret River” by Liu Wan-ling.
 
Established in 2005, BDFIL is the largest comics festival in French-speaking Switzerland, and after the Angouleme International Comics Festival in France, the second-largest of such events in Francophone Europe.


Fuente: Noticias de Taiwan (https://noticias.nat.gov.tw/)