3D Printing (未來正在成型) is Taiwan’s first exhibition for designers who have embraced the technology. The group exhibition features 21 works realized with 3D printers, such as Chou Yu-jun’s (周育潤) giraffe sculpture, and a pen lodged in a tiny ornate cage by Tong Ho (何忠堂 ) and Rock Wang (王俊隆). Fons Sweegers and Lilian van Stekelenburg are here with Kitchen Hack, a 3D-printed apparatus that makes yarn when you run the flour mixer.
■ Taiwan Design Museum (台灣設計館), 133 Guangfu S Rd, Taipei City (臺北市光復南路133號), tel: (02) 2745-8199 X 370. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9:30am to 5:30pm. Regular admission: NT$50
■ Until Oct. 13
Photo Courtesy of Taiwan Design Museum
Acclaimed artisan Lin Guo-shinn (林國信) presents 33 sets of silver teapots and other metalwork at a solo exhibition Ripples on Water (水的線條). His teapots range from exquisite to charming with handles that curl out like a tail. Lin, who has worked with metal for 25 years, specializes in decorative finishing. Using burl metal — an alloy of bronze and silver — he creates intricate patterns that match the look of natural wood, flames and the water ripples of the exhibition title.
■ National Taiwan Craft Research and Development Institute (NTCRI), Taipei exhibition center (臺北當代工藝設計分館), 9F, 20 Nanhai Rd, Taipei City (臺北市南海路20號9樓), tel: (02) 2356-3879. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9am to 5pm
■ Until Sept. 8
Photo Courtesy of National Museum of history
HOME. LAND II : Do You Know My Name? (吾鄉、吾土系列二 : 你甘知影阮的名) is a solo exhibition about weeds. When Chen Chien-pei (陳建北) visited the Taipei Botanical Garden last year, he noticed tufts of grass and flowers flourishing in neglect and resolved to document them. His efforts include interviews with botanists, poems and photographs of plants taken from various angles. For Chen, the weeds are an extended metaphor for Taiwanese identity. In the showcase, he explores the growing cultural chasm between the older and younger generations.
■ MOCA Studio, Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei (MOCA, Taipei), 39 Changan W Rd, Taipei City (台北市長安西路39號), tel: (02) 2552-3720. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6pm. Admission: Free.
■ Opens today. Until Sept. 29
Photo Courtesy of NTCRDI
Interlocked (連鎖) is a South Korean photographer’s take on Taipei and what seems peculiar to it. Woojin Chang presents images of unusual parts of skyline, space — particularly scarcity of space between one building and the next — and the maze of AC units, electrical wires and pipes fitted in proximity in public spaces. Images are edited, with blocks of city imprinted over others, in accordance with Chang’s impression of the city. “I took great care to maintain and even enhance the feel of Taipei as I have felt it, while at the same time adding extra elements to augment the whimsical nature of the fictitious cityscape,” writes Chang in his gallery notes.
■ Treasure Hill Artist Village, Cross Gallery (寶藏巖國際藝術村十字藝廊), 2, Aly 14, Ln 230, Dingzhou Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市汀州路三段230巷14弄2號), tel: (02) 2364-5313. Open Tuesday to Sundays from 11am to 6pm
■ Until Sunday
Turkish painter Devrim Erbil brings panoramic scenes from his home country to Taiwan’s National Museum of History. The solo exhibition, Poetic Abstraction: from Istanbul (詩意的抽象─來自伊斯坦堡), provides a bird’s-eye view of Instanbul rendered in Erbil’s famously delicate lines and carpet-art motifs. Erbil was born in 1937 in Turkey’s carpet-weaving province of Usak and then trained in Istanbul, Paris and London. He was elected Turkey’s “Young Artist of the Year” in 1968, and awarded the prestigious State Artist title in 1991.
■ National Museum of History (國立歷史博物館), 49 Nanhai Rd, Taipei City (台北市南海路49號), tel: (02) 2361-0270. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6pm. General admission: NT$30
■ Until Oct. 2
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
This year’s Michelin Gourmand Bib sported 16 new entries in the 126-strong Taiwan directory. The fight for the best braised pork rice and the crispiest scallion pancake painstakingly continued, but what stood out in the lineup this year? Pang Taqueria (胖塔可利亞); Taiwan’s first Michelin-recommended Mexican restaurant. Chef Charles Chen (陳治宇) is a self-confessed Americophile, earning his chef whites at a fine-dining Latin-American fusion restaurant. But what makes this Xinyi (信義) spot stand head and shoulders above Taipei’s existing Mexican offerings? The authenticity. The produce. The care. AUTHENTIC EATS In my time on the island, I have caved too many times to
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not