The museum as museum piece

One year after Taipei's Museum of Contemporary Art opened in its grandiose structure on Changan W. Rd, many people still refer to its location as "the old city hall."

That is due to the rich historical significance of the building located in one of Taipei's earliest developed districts. Originally an elementary school built by the Japanese during their occupation of Taiwan and then Taipei's city hall until 1993, the past roles of the MOCA building are still ingrained in the minds of Taipei residents.

The building's particular history and its current function as a forum for contemporary art amid a traditional community has promted writer and architect Roan Ching-yueh (阮慶岳) to curate Street as Plant, Art as Animal: A Story of `Residents+Architecture+Images' (街道是植物，藝術是動物：一個關於「居民＋建築＋影像」的故事), currently on show at MOCA.

Roan compares a city to a forest, artists to animals and city streets to plants. The expanse of the city is where artists turn to for spiritual comfort and nourishment.

Putting forward the metaphor of the interdependence between the city and its artists, Roan stresses that contemporary art reaches out from the gallery to its surroundings. Consequently, in the exhibition, three artists display the close relationship and lively interaction between art and the social environment, or the gallery and its community.

Chinese-American photographer Yeh Wei-Li's (葉偉立) MOCA and I is an interesting installation created in collaboration between Yeh and MOCA's neighbors. Going from door to door asking residents to present "something that they treasure very much and regard as suitable to be on display at MOCA," Yeh photographed 18 works from them and each picture is accompanied by the resident's portrait and a song that he or she picked to go with their exhibit.

The guard at the building presents his Buddha statue while the noodle stand owner in the neighboring alley shows a serving of his masterpiece -- fried rice with shrimp. The pop songs selected by these unlikely artists float in the air, giving the human landscape of Changan W. Rd a warm and down-to-earth human touch.

Inspired by the fact that a large part of Tatung district, where the museum is located, consists of container manufacturers, architect Chi-Yi Chang (張基義) created Containers. The installation explores the changes Tatung has been through during Taiwan's economic development.

Filmmaker C. Jay Shih (石昌杰)arranges old and new images of Changan W. Rd into a film of one day on Changan W. Rd in Shifting Gaze. In the installation, some photos of often-neglected corners of the street taken over the years are placed in cat's eyes for viewers to peek at. They present a unique poetic look at the community as a living space.