Sat, Feb 13, 2010 page2

• FEATURE : Art students help beautify village

  COOPERATION When the Tugou village chief’s efforts to improve his community came to the attention of an art professor, he sent a group of students to live there

  • STAFF WRITER, WITH CNA
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  Students from Tainan National University of the Arts (TNNUA) and the people of a small village in Houbi Township (後壁), Tainan County, have succeeded in transforming their community into one that combines traditional lifestyles and art.

  Tugou (土溝) is one of 21 villages in Houbi. Although its size accounts for 10 percent of the township by size, the village has only 460 households and 1,700 people.

  Nearly all of the village’s land is given over to farming and the residents are conservative and live a slow-paced life. Like most farming villages in Taiwan, it suffers from a drain of youth who move away for school or work, leaving only the elderly at home.

  However, the situation changed in 2000 when Chang Chia-hui (張佳惠) was elected village chief and began trying to improve the lives of residents by improving the environment.

  He formed a community empowerment society with some of the more active villagers, planting flowers and turning unused land into a public square where people could sit and chat while their grandchildren play.

  “People will support community empowerment once they begin to enjoy the benefits of it,” he said.

  Community empowerment is about people and government working together to bring about improvements.

  It allows more people the chance to influence decisions about their communities and take responsibility for tackling local problems, rather than expecting others to do it for them.

  The idea is that neither the government nor the community can solve everything itself, so it’s better for them work together.

  Chang’s efforts came to the attention of Tseng Shu-cheng (曾旭正), a professor at TNNUA, who used to serve as deputy commissioner of Tainan County.

  Tseng believed that his students at the university’s Graduate Institute of Architecture could help the villagers and told them they could apply the skills they learned in the classroom to Tugou and write about their experiences.

  Shortly after that, the first group of students moved into Tugou.

  “This is more than just study or homework. To find out what most suits the needs of the villagers, you have to be a part of them and think like them,” Tseng told the students.

  The first project undertaken by the students, mostly in their 20s, and the residents, many in their 80s, was converting a disused pig pen owned by Chang into a public living room decorated with artwork.

  The second collaboration involved the renovation of a public space in an even smaller settlement called Chuzihciao, which at the time had only 29 households.

  The students asked painter Yin Chia-hui (殷嘉輝) to paint the outer walls of the houses and sculptor Ho Chia-fu (侯加福) to carve stone snails for the space — a symbol of peace.

  Bao A-mo, an elderly woman living in the settlement, said that since the renovation the square has attracted residents, who gather there to chew the fat.

  “It is a more pleasant place now, and has strengthened the association between neighbors,” she said.

  The students who live in the settlement also became accustomed to village life and have effectively become residents themselves.

  “The local people are upfront with their feelings. If they don’t like my ideas they will reject them outright, “ said Yang Han-ya, one of the students. “I got so frustrated that I often burst into tears during discussions at the beginning. I couldn’t understand why they insisted on their own feelings and didn’t trust my expertise.”

  However, after living among them for more than a year, Yang now counts herself as one of the villagers. Local residents shout out greetings to her when she rides her scooter through Chuzihciao and stop her for a chat when she walks around Tugou.

  Lu Yao-chung was one of the first group of students to move into Tugou. He graduated from the Graduate Institute of Architecture after living there for two years, only to return to the village to open his own design firm after finishing his military service.

  He was glad to see the program had entered its sixth year.

  Lu said Tugou is a beautiful place that inspires him to turn out work that is different from his competitors.

  “Of course, the cheap cost of opening a firm here is another reason why I chose it over a big city to set up my studio,” he said.

  Lu is not alone. Ho, the sculptor, built a studio in Chuziciao that was designed by students, and has become the 30th household there.

  “Before, when asked ‘Where do you live,’ local people used to reply with ‘near Sinying (新營),’ or ‘next to Baihe Township (白河),’ because few outsiders would know where Tugou is, but now they simply say ‘Tugou,’” Chang said with pride.
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