Kenbo Liao is a very interesting persona inhabiting the very heart of Taipei City. He lives just a block or two away from Taipei Main Station, three blocks or so on the other side to the Presidential Palace; talking about a Taipei urbanite he is definitely one. His family has been living in this area for about a century or maybe more, Kenbo’s mum witnessed bombardment of Taipei on May 31, 1945. In spite of his what most would call senior age, he is still very active on Taipei’s nightlife scene, too. Meeting and talking to him is like unwrapping another layer of unknown but interesting stories, experiences and vantage points.
Over the years Kenbo has been around and had a chance to meet many interesting people. Many had a chance to find out that he has been an animator for over 40 years with a few breaks. These are photos of one of his studios from early through to late 1980s. These set ups totally look like from another epoch but modern at the same time.
This studio led to creation of many interesting videos like this one:
The Taipei Times covered the animation back in 2007
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2007/10/13/2003383034
One time he sat down in his studio in 1988 and after two years of one-man hard, laborious work he has produced a very interesting masterpiece indeed. This work was completely done on personal computers by Kenbo himself. It came second in a animation video competition ran in Taiwan and it became the first ever computer generated Taiwanese computer video only made digitally.
Now Kenbo has bigger plans. He is allegedly going to start a new cultural entity called Taiwan Culture Ministry 台灣文化部 . It is planned by him to set up a place where artist can come and collaborate freely. Then in longer picture there are plans to take his art around the globe to display as well as perform.
Kenb Liao is a Taipei urbanite always trying what is in his power to make the capital city more free, liberated and ready for free, uncontrolled or restricted dialogue.
Taiwan Observer 