When We Breathe: from Taixi to Chester

Join Taipei-based artist Hong-Kai Wang for a workshop that expands on her place-based and soundscape research to seek openings for transnational solidarity, especially around issues of environmental toxicity.

Intended to examine these issues from a range of community, artistic, and research perspectives, the workshop will begin with brief presentations from the artist alongside environmental justice advocate, Zulene Mayfield, and Dr. Marilyn Howarth, MD, FACOEM (Community Engagement Core at CEET UPenn). The presentations will be followed by a group listening session and conversation examining embodied memory, sound, and toxicity, alongside forms of resistance.

This workshop is part of a series of long-term conversations with collaborators that Hong-Kai Wang has developed for a forthcoming exhibition project at ICA Philadelphia in 2026. Her collaborators include current and former residents of Taixi Township in Yunlin County, Taiwan, and Chester, Pennsylvania, two communities that have been devastated by industrial-scale environmental toxicity.

This event will take place at Public Trust (4017 Walnut St, Philadelphia, PA 19104) and will be recorded for research purposes.

Image credit: Hong-Kai Wang. Southern Clairaudience: some sound documents for a future act, 2016-2019.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

Get App

Host or Publisher Institute of Contemporary Art