The Academia Sinica’s Digital Center and the National Library of Public Information yesterday unveiled a meticulously prepared exhibition in Greater Taichung, inviting the public to take a trip down memory lane.
Titled Traveling in Time, the exhibition incorporates digital technology with interactive installations in an effort to make the stories of eight of the most significant people in Taiwan during the period from 1860 to 1960 better known to modern-day generations.
Among the octet are Shen Bao-zhen (沈葆楨), an imperial envoy of the Qing Dynasty who actively governed Taiwan from 1874 to 1875; Chen Cheng-po (陳澄波), a renowned Taiwanese painter who was executed in Chiayi City during the 228 Massacre of 1947; Kao Tzu-mei (高慈美), Taiwan’s first-ever female piano instructor; as well as Lin Hsien-tang (林獻堂) and Yang Chao-chia (楊肇嘉), two of the nation’s democracy pioneers.
Photo: CNA
“The Academia Sinica preserves an abundance of valuable historical documents, but most of them have been lying on the shelves waiting to be read and explored. Through the digital-based exhibition, they can now become more accessible for people from different parts of the country,” Liu Shih-yung (劉士永), an Academia Sinica research fellow, said.
National Taiwan University musicology professor Shen Tung (沈冬), an eighth-generation descendant of Shen Bao-zhen, also attended the exhibition’s launch yesterday.
“My ancestor Shen Bao-zhen made considerable contributions to modern Taiwan by making batteries, installing a submarine cable, opening coal mines and redrawing the nation’s administrative districts,” Shen Tung said.
“He and another Qing Dynasty governor of Taiwan, Liu Ming-chuan (劉銘傳), both deserve more emphasis in the nation’s history textbooks, because the more that students know about them, the better they will know about Taiwan,” she said.
The exhibition is to run until June 29.
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