The National Museum of Taiwan History in Tainan is on Friday to reopen following a year-long renovation with four special exhibitions.
The museum, which is in the city’s Annan District (安南), first opened to the public in 2011, but in November 2019, it began a 14-month project to completely transform its children’s hall, update some of the displays in its permanent gallery and upgrade other facilities, it said in a statement on Monday.
The permanent exhibition, titled “Our Land, Our People: The Story of Taiwan,” aims to tell the histories of the land and people in different periods, it said.
Photo: Liu Wan-chun, Taipei Times
The museum said that it is devoted to showcasing the diverse ethnic groups and cultures of Taiwan, and promoting cultural equity.
The updated permanent exhibition presents a dialogue of diverse values, enhances its depiction of ethnic groups and shows the perspectives of regular local people, museum acting director Yang Hsien-fei (楊仙妃) said.
The museum commissioned contemporary artist Ruby Swana, an Amis, to complete an installation of an Aboriginal legend at the entrance of the permanent exhibition, Yang said.
Discussions of Taiwan’s history should not only be about the past, but should also confront changes in society and reality, she said, adding that in recent years, the museum has added art work on social issues, such as gender equality, new immigrants and social movements.
These works, along with interview data it has collected, are to be on display at the museum following its reopening, she said.
The museum seeks to present contemporary trends in the society and local communities of Taiwan, she added.
The renovation project included creating a space where visitors could use virtual reality to take in stories about history, the museum said.
New facilities with interactive multimedia technology have also been installed to offer visitors a new sensory experience, the museum added.
“Islands in Between: Thousand Faces of Taiwan,” one of the special exhibitions to open on Friday and run through June 6, broaches the question of how Taiwan should be imagined and defined, a description on the museum’s Web site said.
“Contemporary Housing and Society in Taiwan,” a special exhibition to open on Friday and run through April 6, focuses on local housing issues.
General admission to the museum is NT$100. More information about the museum can be found at www.nmth.gov.tw.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
RSS