An exhibition featuring products and artworks designed in Taiwan has opened in Tokyo, as part of the months-long arts festival Taiwan NOW.
The festival is to run through Dec. 25, with events in Tokyo, Kaohsiung and online, featuring a wide range of art projects, such as short film screenings, performance art pieces and concerts.
Notably, there are several collaborations between Taiwanese and Japanese artists, including a large-scale art installation at the atrium of the Kitte Marunouchi shopping mall in Tokyo, and a Taiwanese opera performance at the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts, also known as Weiwuying, in December.
The first event in the festival is an exhibition titled “Fictional Garden: TAIWAN HOUSE,” which features products and works created by eight Taiwanese design teams using sustainable materials.
Representative to Japan Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) said that after visiting the exhibition on Sunday he felt the pieces on display reflected the designers’ ingenuity and conveyed the essence of Taiwan.
Tomoharu Inoue, chairman of Culture Vision Japan, one of the co-organizers of the festival, also visited the exhibition on Sunday, as did Hiroyuki Fukano, president and chief executive officer of the Japan Institute of Design Promotion, another organization that helped create the festival.
Inoue said he found the artworks and products colorful and aesthetically pleasing, adding that he hopes artists in Taiwan and Japan can continue to collaborate and conduct exchanges.
The sustainably minded designs with their focus on being environmentally friendly could provide people with a sense of hope in the COVID-19 era, Fukano said.
Taiwan NOW was also organized by the Cultural Taiwan Foundation and supervised by the Ministry of Culture.
It was originally scheduled to take place last year just before the Tokyo Olympics, but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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