The Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts (關渡美術館) will lay out a small forest of driftwood on Taipei National University of the Arts’ Aigrette Down (鷺鷥草原) tomorrow for a one-day do-it-yourself, or DIY, event that is part of its Driftwood Sculpture Festival, which features 12 artists from Taiwan and abroad.
Tomorrow’s family-oriented activity — which is organized by the museum and university — seeks to turn children into artists and furniture makers, if only for one day.
“It’s part educational and … part fun. We provide free driftwood to the public and they can make sculptures and furniture,” said Ho Ming-kuei (何明桂) of the museum’s exhibition department.
The DIY event begins at 9am on Aigrette Down, a series of rolling hills located to the left of the university’s front gate that offer stunning views of Taipei.
In addition to driftwood, festival organizers will provide hammers, nails and other materials necessary for creating a chair or statue. Students from Taipei National University of the Arts will be on hand to help the burgeoning artists and carpenters. Tomorrow’s event concludes at 3pm.
On Sunday, the festival begins in earnest with an opening ceremony that will be attended by 10 of the 12 participating artists. They will unveil and discuss the pieces that they’ve created on-site over the past two weeks. The sculptures will go on display until Dec. 31.
The artists from Taiwan include Lai Chi-man (黎志文), Tsai Ken (蔡根), Yien Chung-hsian (顏忠賢), Chang Nai-wen (張乃文), Lee Jiun-yang (李俊陽) and Tai Han-hong (戴翰泓). Foreign artists include Mori Ichiro of Japan, Anthony Luensman of the US and Martyn Barratt of the UK.
Aboriginal artist Rahic Talif (拉黑子達立夫), who participated in the festival three years ago and has a sculpture on view this year, will lead members from the Amis tribe in a performance that ends with a prayer ritual for victims of Typhoon Morakot.
This is the first time the Driftwood Sculpture Festival is being held at the Taipei National University of the Arts. The festival was previously held at the Shihmen Reservoir.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist
Peter Brighton was amazed when he found the giant jackfruit. He had been watching it grow on his farm in far north Queensland, and when it came time to pick it from the tree, it was so heavy it needed two people to do the job. “I was surprised when we cut it off and felt how heavy it was,” he says. “I grabbed it and my wife cut it — couldn’t do it by myself, it took two of us.” Weighing in at 45 kilograms, it is the heaviest jackfruit that Brighton has ever grown on his tropical fruit farm, located