Duncan Mountford
The focus of my work between 1998 and 2003 was the relationship of installation theory and practice to museums, specifically museums of science and natural history. The contention was that museums are installations - works of imagination. This enables such objective institutions to be interrogated for their connections to themes of memory, loss, and melancholy. The research drew on a wide field of reference, beginning with the critique of the museum as institution and ending with the ruin of the museum as a cultural and personal metaphor. The work since 2003 develops the above central ideas and draws on both the history and philosophy of the natural sciences, museums and scientific institutions, and on how history leaves traces that can be discerned in multiple contexts. These themes are addressed via installations within which are placed optical ‘devices’ of lenses, mirrors, and lights with integral video and photographic slides. The videos are explicitly non-narrative, fragments that enable cross connections with no imposed linear structure. This video is mediated via the lenses and mirrors within the devices, and this in turn makes the viewer aware of their relationship with the video imagery - the devices providing one optimum viewing position. In like manner, the photographic slides are unclear (uncertain is the term I prefer) and the end result of the mechanism of projection rather than a stand-alone image. Since 2007 my research has included a questioning stance towards the European Enlightenment perspective of the world with specific regard to the Far East – a term that itself illustrates this point. The work examines contemporary readings of culture and history alongside the critical examination of Eurocentric perspectives.
Education
1998 - 2003 PhD Fine Art by Theory and Practice, Nottingham Trent University, UK
1993 - 1994 M.A. Sculpture, Winchester School of Art, UK
Current Positions
2015 - 2019 Visiting Assistant Professor, School of Fine Art, National Taiwan University of Arts
2013 (to present) Visiting Assistant Professor (part-time), School of Fine Art, Taipei National University of the Arts
Solo exhibitions
2023 - Haunt, VT Artsalon, Taipei, Taiwan.
2022 - The Office of Arcana, MoCA Studio Space, Taipei, Taiwan.
2017 - Space Station, SeeART Space, Taipei, Taiwan.
2017 - Make it up as I go along, Hsinchu, Taiwan.
2015 - The Chamber of Uncanny Objects, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
2015 - A Cabinet for NTU, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
2013 - Daci Village Project, Tainan, Taiwan
2011 - Study Void, Ox Warehouse, Macao
2010 - The Problem of Knowledge 2, Taipei National University of the Arts, Taipei, Taiwan
2009 - Institute, Plan 9, Bristol, UK
2008 - Through a Glass Uncertainly, Dartington Gallery, Dartington College of Arts, UK
2007 - A Sense of Wonder and the Problem of Knowledge, Ginza Art Lab and Koiwa Project Space, Tokyo, Japan
2005 - Mnemosyne, Derby Museum and Art Gallery, Derby, UK
2001 - The Archive of Lost Knowledge, The Yard Gallery, Wollaton Hall, Nottingham
2000 - ordinary facts arranged within time, Bonington Gallery, Nottingham
1996 - Lost/ Found The Glass Box Gallery, Salford
1996 - Traces, South Trafford College, Manchester
1995 - 23 August 1994 Skillion Warehouse, Liverpool
1993 - My Subject is War, Williamson Art Gallery, Birkenhead
Group exhibitions
2023 - The City & The City, O Bank Foundation Exhibition Space. With Anna Mo and Ray Kiang of Empty Art Collective
2021 - The Embassy of Doggerland, exhibited in C Lab, Taipei as part of the group exhibition Transcodage.
2019 - 2020 Silent Running, Project produced as a member of Empty Art Collective. Exhibited at Songshan Cultural Park, Taipei (2019), and Horticultural Building, Youth Park Wanhua, Taipei (2020)
2017 - 2018 - Station 3, in M-Space: Formosa Sculpture Biennial, Pier2, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
2017 - Solomon's House, in Moving Anchor, National Taiwan University of Arts Museum, Taiwan
2016 - Singer, in Hieroglyphic Memory, Bopillao Historic Space, Taipei, Taiwan
2016 - Wall, in Wandering x Intervening, Sly Art Space, Taipei, Taiwan
2014 - Crystal Eggs, Nanhai Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan
2014 - The Rings of Saturn, Arts Lab AKIBA, Tokyo, Japan
2013 - MOCA Taipei Video Exhibition, external screen outside MOCA, Taipei, Taiwan
2011 - 10 x 10, Taipei Artist Village, Taipei, Taiwan
2004 - Airborne System mode, Ox Warehouse, Macau, China
2000 - Brief Encounter, Melbourne, Austrailia
2000 - Raid, Derby, various sites
2000 - The Box Project, The Museum of Installation, London and Tour
1997 - Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, The Doctor Duncan Exhibition, Museum of Liverpool Life
1995 - Group Exhibition, Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool
1995 - Group Exhibition, Mream, Melbourne, Australia
1994 - Group Exhibition, Winchester Gallery, Winchester
Workshops 2011 - Young Designers Workshop, Kun Shan University, Tainan, Taiwan Residencies 2011 - International Fellowship, Taipei Artist Village, Taipei, Taiwan 2010 - Artist Residency, Taipei National University of the Arts, Taipei, Taiwan