Welcome to a screening of Invisible Nation (2023), a documentary portraying Taiwan through the lens of its first female president, Tsai Ing-wen. Following the screening, themes raised by the film will be discussed in a panel with Dr. Gina Song Lopez and Dr. Jonathan Andrew.

Directed and produced by Vanessa Hope, Invisible Nation offers an intimate portrait of Taiwan through the perspective of its first female president, Tsai Ing-wen.

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion exploring many of the themes raised in the film. Bringing together perspectives on geopolitics, media representation, cultural translation, identity, sustainability, and everyday life, the conversation will move between macro- and micro-level perspectives in order to examine how global political developments are negotiated through cultural, institutional, and individual contexts. Particular attention will be given to East -West relations, the complexities of Taiwan’s history, and the impact of growing global instability on the island’s future. Reflecting on the responsibilities of institutions, researchers, and AI-driven technologies that increasingly shape global public discourse, the panel will also consider the persistence of geopolitical conflict and the conditions under which democratic societies endure - or falter.

The Screening is free of charge, seats are limited. Please register as soon as possible, but no later than 21 May. 

Link to registration

The Panel

Dr. Gina Song Lopez is a recent PhD graduate from the Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, with expertise in environmental and animal advocacy movements, food practices, and lifestyle change in contemporary Taiwan and China.

Her research focuses on the intersection between consumption culture, civil society, and green lifestyle ethics. She specialises in the emergence of a new generation of plant-based and vegan advocacy actors in the region, with particular attention to how shifting dietary and lifestyle choices are shaped by ethical, environmental, and health-related concerns in Taiwan and China. Her work examines how global sustainability and lifestyle ethics are locally understood and negotiated, as well as how ideas about ethical consumption and sustainable lifestyles are translated within Sino-cultural contexts. A key focus is how “new” veganism operates not only as a dietary shift, but also as part of broader transformations in everyday ethics, identity, and consumer culture. 

She is also a member of the Lund University Critical Animal Studies Institute.

Dr Jonathan Andrew is a Visiting International Fellow at the Pufendorf Institute for Advanced Studies conducting research on the nexus of human rights law with the development of new technologies. Based at the Geneva Academy, he works as a Consultant to UN Special Rapporteurs and the Advisory Committee of the Human Rights Council and has been a Senior Advisor to the Danish Institute for Human Rights. At the European University Institute (EUI) he completed his doctoral studies and worked as the Project Manager for SURVEILLE, a cross-disciplinary collaborative research project funded by the European Commission, where he focused on the impact of the surveillance of mobile devices on freedom of movement, assembly and association. Before joining the EUI, he was the Senior Legal Adviser with the Danish Refugee Council in Tajikistan. His professional experience includes consulting in IT, digital marketing and business process re-engineering.