For the next three weeks, visitors to Fulong Beach can marvel at the artistic and technical wonders that can be molded from a heap of soggy sand. The 2009 Fulong Sand Sculpture Festival, which opened last Saturday and runs until June 28, is free with admission to the beach for NT$90 (NT$70 for students) and features 27 large sculptures that range from the cute to the haunting. A wide-eyed Hello Kitty and a smug-looking Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle stand near a rendition of Matsu, the goddess of the sea, which seems to gaze serenely upon the beachgoers.
This year’s sculptures are grouped into three themes: The Three-Dimensional World, or cultural, religious and pop icons ranging from Buddha to baseball player Wang Chien-ming (王建民) rendered in sand form, The Fortuitous Meeting of Sea and Land, or creatures melded in unlikely surf-and-turf combinations like a sheep/lobster hybrid, and a series of sculptures based on “the peculiar scenery of the northeast coast” of Taiwan.
Attendees can work on their own masterpiece at a sand-sculpting area, where hoses are on hand to help dampen sand to maximum molding condition. People who don’t want to get their hands dirty can stroll through an easy-to-navigate maze, the walls of which are covered in sculpted sea creatures. Organizers hope the interactive nature of this year’s festival will boost attendance numbers past last year’s estimated 50,000 visitors.
Chi-chun Hsieh (謝啟駿) was on the beach during the festival’s Saturday afternoon opening, touching up the sculpture he made with fellow sculptor Yang Ming-dang (楊明堂). Hsieh, a Keelung-based graphic designer and art teacher who is participating in the festival for the second time this year, explained how a sand sculpture is made as he gently patted and smoothed the base of his creation in front of curious beachcombers.
First, a large wooden structure is hammered together that serves as the mold into which damp sand is shoveled and packed until hard. The casing is removed just one day before the festival opens, after which the sculptors add detail by hand and carefully sprinkle the top layer of sand with water before brushing on a white biodegradable liquid that resembles resin. The wet sand hardens into a shell that protects the sand underneath it from the elements. Each sculpture takes about three weeks to make and will last for two or three months before it erodes completely and fades back into the golden sands of Fulong Beach.
Hsieh says that sand sculpting is both a novel experience for him and something that, despite its ephemeral nature, he believes inspires appreciation for art among the public.
“Five years ago there weren’t sand sculpture festivals at the scale there are now. I’ve always been an artist, but this is something that is new to me and an art form that people really appreciate,” says Hsieh.
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