After six years of restoration work, a dilapidated city block in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華區) has returned to life as a new arts district that the Taipei City Government hopes will complement its efforts to reinvigorate traditional local culture in the area. The new arts district officially opened on Saturday in conjunction with the two-month long Popiarts Old Street Cultural Festival (剝皮寮藝條通:古街文化節).
Kangding Road Lane 173 (康定路173巷) was left largely untouched by the massive developments that have been taking place in and around the now cleaned up and modernized Lungshan Temple (龍山寺). The hookers and purveyors of pirated porn and snake products have now been ushered off the main thoroughfare into less visible back alleys, replaced by the rather more convivial No. 12 City Park. This gradual process of modernization and restoration has now extended one block to the east.
The rectangular city block that lines this alley has had its old and more evocative name revived. Po-Pi-Liao (剝皮寮), literally translated as the “peeling workshop,” was formerly the center of Taipei’s lumber business.
Wang Wen-tu (王文塗), borough warden for Fuying (福音里), where Po-Pi-Liao is located, said that this city block gained its name because it was where the bark of logs that had been towed from Fujian Province in China was stripped away and prepared to be made into construction materials. “During the Qing Dynasty, the river ran right up to this part of town,” he said. “It is one of the oldest parts of Taipei, and its wealth was built on the sale of much-needed timber for construction.” Although it later fell on hard times, Po-Pi-Liao was once one of the richest and busiest areas of Taipei.
Remnants of the block’s golden days are evident in the elaborate architecture of many of the storefronts that make up Po-Pi-Liao. Much of this beauty, previously hidden by signs and the general disrepair of the buildings, has now re-emerged as the result of refurbishment efforts and the rejuvenation of Po-Pi-Liao’s old town center. It has recently served as the setting of the new big-budget period drama Mengjia (艋舺), starring the likes of Ethan Ruan (阮經天) and Mark Chao (趙又廷). This exciting development might account for the movie town feel of the old street, which in fact has been divided into a number of exhibition spaces the Taipei City Government hopes will attract artists of all sorts, thereby enriching local culture and enhancing the area’s tourist appeal.
The spaces, characterized by a combination of heavy wooden beams, brick and stone, are enormously attractive, as is the secluded garden area. However, their current status as venues for the Fusion Folks Contemporary Art Exhibition (混搭-當代藝術展), which is part of the festival, might be somewhat questionable. Featuring 24 young artists, seven invited from overseas, the exhibition seems to possess little connection to the space, and once again appears to expose the city government as a sucker for abstract and inaccessible art.
Fortunately, there is a great deal else going on beyond Fusion Folks, not least the opportunity for visitors to take in some of the old buildings, now stripped of tatty awnings and signs. The mixture of neo-baroque and Japanese colonial is a fascinating manifestation of the hurley burley of Taiwan’s history.
Starting on Sept. 12, the new venue will serve as the center of the Bopi-Summer Feast (寮一夏), which will include music, theater performances and movies. Opening the festival will be Deserts Chang (張懸) and her new band Algae.
Festival and exhibition curator Sean Hu (胡朝聖) emphasized that in addition to all these events, Po-Pi-Liao will become a center for tourist exploration of the historic Wanhua District. A “fun tour map” has been published and provides a friendly, if not particularly informative or innovative, introduction to local points of interest. For those so inclined, the Po-Pi-Liao event is also connected to the ubiquitous Cow Parade, and visitors can search for the Night Market Cow, the Devotional Cow and other cow sculptures that are spread throughout the district.
Not everyone, however, was fully appreciative of the way the city government restored the space or the manner in which it has chosen to use it. “Well, they might have just torn it down,” said one arts manager present at the opening ceremony. The creation of the Po-Pi-Liao Old Street, has, if nothing else, preserved something of old Taipei, and it will hopefully evolve throughout the course of the current Bopiarts Festival to become a genuine part of the ongoing Wanhua community revival.
Detailed information about the festival can be found at www.bopiarts.tw. Po-Pi-Liao is located at the corner of Guangzhou Street (廣州街) and Kangding Road (康定路) and is open 10am to 5pm Sundays to Thursdays and until 7pm on Fridays and Saturdays. Closed on Mondays. Admission is free.
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