Les Joynes

Introduction

Dr. Les Joynes (US) is an American artist and poet. He is 2022 recipient of the Fulbright-Nehru Professional and Academic Excellence Award and served as Senior Scholar and professor in Contemporary art and performance in India. He served on the curatorial team for the inaugural Taipei Biennial “Sites of Desire” exhibition. A multimedia artist, Joynes has exhibited in museums in the US, Europe and Asia since 1993. A fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Anthropological Institute, he was resident artist at the Nordic Artists Center Norway, the Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado in Brazil and Nagasawa Artists Park in Japan and is 2023 Resident Artist at Kio-A-Thau Sugar Refinery in Kaohsiung. Trained in contemporary art in London, he is recipient of the Japan Monbusho Award, the Taiwan Ministry of Education Huayu Scholarship and Fulbright Awards for Mongolia, China, India and Sri Lanka. Completing his PhD from the Faculty of Art, Environment and Technology, Leeds Metropolitan University, UK and Post-Doctorate in Fine Art from the School of Communications and Arts, University of São Paulo, Brazil. He serves on the Editorial Board for ProjectAnywhere, a peer-reviewed journal at University of Melbourne, Australia and is an art critic and Modern and Contemporary art historian, contributing to Art in America, Flash Art, Springer (Vienna), the Journal of Artistic Research and the University of Indiana Press.

Resident planning

I will create a text and photo essay of Taipei South of Datong District, Dadaocheng with the objective of exploring “City as an expression of love” as disparate histories merge and blend into the city-scape. Examining the Datong District private and public spaces and with the set of photos weave in narratives both real (from discussions with local) and imagined. I have visited the Datong District on many occasions when I was living in Tainan in 2016. This essay will be part essay and part poetic expression. I will be using short forms of Flash Fiction, Microprose and Ephemeral Prose which focuses on a single image or moment and uses lyrical language to convey emotions and themes. This will be combined with photographs or other images. I will also explore Experimental prose: merging elements of poetry, prose, and dialogue, using unconventional layouts and spacing with like visual poetry will explore the spaces in which the words inhabit. Examining the boundaries of language and the play between word, image and space.