Surfing, plant displays and skateboarding offer three perspectives on Taiwanese culture in an upcoming Modern China Lecture Series program featuring filmmaker James Wicks at Cal State San Bernardino.
The free public program will take place from 2:30-4 p.m. Monday, Nov. 16, in SB-216 at CSUSB and on Zoom.
Wicks, a professor of media and film studies at Point Loma Nazarene University, will present three short documentaries blending art, academic inquiry and Taiwanese culture:
- “Surfing Taiwan: Past, Present, Future,” an 18-minute documentary exploring the history of surfing in Taiwan and its cultural significance.
- “Taiwan Plants are Graffiti,” a five-minute documentary presented as a first cut, examining how Taiwanese people use plants to decorate homes, businesses and other establishments as a form of street art.
- “Skateboarding in the Skateboarding Capital of the Skateboarding,” an experimental five-minute film guiding viewers through the streets of Taitung, a city in southern Taiwan, through the movement of skateboarding.
A San Diego-based media educator and filmmaker who grew up in Taiwan, Wicks is working on surf documentaries set there. He is also developing a documentary about his recently published photobook, “Plants as Roadblock as Graffiti.”
The Modern China Lecture Series was initiated in January 2014 to promote awareness of important issues related to China for those on the CSUSB campus and in the community.
Since then, it has presented more than 100 lectures, workshops, film screenings and roundtable forums featuring China scholars from UC San Diego, UC Riverside, the Claremont Colleges, UCLA, USC, UC Irvine, Columbia, Oxford and other institutions, who have visited the CSUSB campus or joined via video conference to share their expertise and opinions.
Recordings of previous lectures are archived on the CSUSB Modern China Lecture Series channel on YouTube.
For more information, contact Jeremy Murray at jmurray@csusb.edu, and visit the Modern China Lecture Series webpage.