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
In the mainstream view, the Philippines should be worried that a conflict over Taiwan between the superpowers will drag in Manila. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr observed in an interview in The Wall Street Journal last year, “I learned an African saying: When elephants fight, the only one that loses is the grass. We are the grass in this situation. We don’t want to get trampled.” Such sentiments are widespread. Few seem to have imagined the opposite: that a gray zone incursion of People’s Republic of China (PRC) ships into the Philippines’ waters could trigger a conflict that drags in Taiwan. Fewer
March 18 to March 24 Yasushi Noro knew that it was not the right time to scale Hehuan Mountain (合歡). It was March 1913 and the weather was still bitingly cold at high altitudes. But he knew he couldn’t afford to wait, either. Launched in 1910, the Japanese colonial government’s “five year plan to govern the savages” was going well. After numerous bloody battles, they had subdued almost all of the indigenous peoples in northeastern Taiwan, save for the Truku who held strong to their territory around the Liwu River (立霧溪) and Mugua River (木瓜溪) basins in today’s Hualien County (花蓮). The Japanese
Pei-Ru Ko (柯沛如) says her Taipei upbringing was a little different from her peers. “We lived near the National Palace Museum [north of Taipei] and our neighbors had rice paddies. They were growing food right next to us. There was a mountain and a river so people would say, ‘you live in the mountains,’ and my friends wouldn’t want to come and visit.” While her school friends remained a bus ride away, Ko’s semi-rural upbringing schooled her in other things, including where food comes from. “Most people living in Taipei wouldn’t have a neighbor that was growing food,” she says. “So
Whether you’re interested in the history of ceramics, the production process itself, creating your own pottery, shopping for ceramic vessels, or simply admiring beautiful handmade items, the Zhunan Snake Kiln (竹南蛇窯) in Jhunan Township (竹南), Miaoli County, is definitely worth a visit. For centuries, kiln products were an integral part of daily life in Taiwan: bricks for walls, tiles for roofs, pottery for the kitchen, jugs for fermenting alcoholic drinks, as well as decorative elements on temples, all came from kilns, and Miaoli was a major hub for the production of these items. The Zhunan Snake Kiln has a large area dedicated