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Animation Festival in Hyde Park Being Organized by Art Teacher in Taiwan

By Sam Cholke | November 7, 2014 7:21am
SAN LASZLO CONTRO SANTA MARIA EGIZIACA
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Magda Guidi

HYDE PARK — Experimental Station will host an animation festival on Saturday that's being curated and organized from nearly 7,500 miles away by a junior high art teacher in Taipei, Taiwan.

Vicky Wei-Hsuan Yen has collected animated shorts from Finland, Italy, Taiwan and the United States to be screened the "Butter Elbow Animation Festival" at 6 p.m. at Experimental Station, 6100 S. Blackstone Ave., with the help of a few Hyde Parkers.

“It’s like 'everything is just virtual reality’ — I still couldn't believe that it is happening in less than four days,” Yen said from Taipei.

Yen, who is 14 hours ahead of Chicago, is getting ready for bed as she talks with Laura Shaeffer in Hyde Park about sequencing the films and getting a space ready that she won’t ever see in person.

“Organizing this festival is not easy with Vicky in Taipei, but we really wanted to keep it alive,” Shaeffer said.

Yen and Shaeffer met in 2010 when Yen was a master’s student at the School of the Art Institute and her animation station for Shaffer’s temporary gallery, the South Side Hub of Production or SHOP, was quickly expanding and taking over the space.

The pair decided to block out some time just for animation and recruited animators that Yen knew who weren’t finding their niche in the experimental film festivals.

“We were students, and the rest of the artists we invited were students, all we were thinking was to have fun with the neighborhood kids when watching funny little animated shorts,” Yen said.

She said the biannual festival has grown to include more international films, but it has become more difficult to keep going since she moved back to Taipei in 2012 after she finished graduate school and her student visa was up.

“Ultimately, the goal is to bring Vicky here as an artist in residence with SHOP and then in 2016 to host the festival in Taipei,” Shaeffer said.

She said the festival this year will be more low-key, but hopes to enlarge it next year with workshops and a series of screenings just for children.

The festival will show 17 films this year.

There is a $5 suggested donation.

For more information, visit facebook.com/chicagobeaf.

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