ARTIST IN RESIDENCE GALERIA ARSENAŁ: Walking Grass Agriculture (Chen Han-Sheng and Liu Hsing-You)

In May and June 2026, the Arsenal Gallery in Białystok hosts the artists from Taiwan Chen Han-Sheng and Liu Hsing-You the member of Walking Grass Agriculture collective. Their stay is part of the ARTIST IN RESIDENCE GALERIA ARSENAŁ programme.

Walking Grass Agriculture is a Taiwan-based visual art, design, and curatorial collective founded in 2014 by artists Chen Han-Sheng and Liu Hsing-You. Drawing inspiration from their shared upbringing in farming families and their backgrounds in new media and art history, the collective explores the intersection of agriculture, folk knowledge, and contemporary art. Their name, referencing the Pokémon character Oddish (literally “Walking Grass” in Chinese), reflects a sensibility rooted in mobility, observation, and playful reinvention.

Based in Kaohsiung—Taiwan’s largest port city, known for its industrial landscapes and complex cultural fabric—Walking Grass Agriculture grounds its practice in a methodology they describe as “art through agriculture, cultivating from the roots.” For the artists, agriculture is more than a set of techniques; it is an inherited way of life and a model for artistic thinking. Seasonal rhythms, environmental attunement, and material sensitivity form the basis of their approach.

Their works blur the line between art and activism, employing participatory installations, site-specific research, and curatorial interventions to investigate relationships between food, labour, land, and local histories. Integrating research in topography, modernology, and material culture, they transform fieldwork and agricultural experience into conceptual frameworks for artistic production.

In recent years, their projects have expanded to address broader ecological issues, urban transformation, and gender dynamics. Their work has been presented at major institutions and exhibitions including the Centre Pompidou (France), Chinese Culture Centre of San Francisco (US), Arsenal Gallery in Bialystok (Poland), Bangkok Biennale (Thailand), and Taipei Fine Arts Museum (Taiwan).

Visitors to the Arsenal Gallery in Bialystok had the opportunity to see Walking Grass Agriculture’s works at the group exhibition “Common Landscape / Greeting a Stranger” at the Arsenal Gallery power station in 2025.

ARTISTS’ PORTFOLIO