Taipei Report

/// Taipei Study Trip /////////////////

Hung Wing Chu, Charlie 52627887 Submission Date : 30.8.2012

/// Introduction ///////////////////////////////////

During 20 - 24th May, 2012, we wnet to Taipei for a study trip to visit some exhibitions and museum, also had our own group study for the Red House in Ximen.

In this study trip, we had explored how the ‘Red House’ brand affects and encourages the unique handmade culture in Taipei. Also, how could it helps increasing the awareness of the handmade culture in Taipei of the local teenagers.

We went to the Young Designers Exhibition on the first two days and had some interactive with the local young designers. They inspirited me a lot as they are so kind to explain their concept and method of their designs. On the second and the third days’ afternoon, we had our own group study beyond the Red House. We did some interviews with the designers and we highly appreciate them to live their dream proudly.

We visited a paper museum on the third day’s morning, this is a very interesting experience to know someone is treating every single paper as a gift while people thought a paper just came out from a stationary shop. This help us to re-think and re-develop a better concept of apprreciate paper. And on the last two days, we visited four museums and creative park.

/// Young Designers Exhibition //////////////////////

On the first and the second days, we had a common visit to the Young Designers Exhibition. It was like a big graduation show of all the design and art schools in Taipei. Different schools got different theme for their own show, and the most inspiration perspective was how they apply the ideas into an outcome product.

Nowadys people often talks about the environmental protection issue, but not every artists or designers want to create something based on this issue.

However, talking about this issue could helps reminding people about the importance of protection. For example, I like the above exhibit very much, named ‘O hai tsui’.

The ‘O hai tsui’ is talking about ‘Japan curent’, one of the ocean tides which could higly affect the fishing industury in Taiwan. The oceam tide would brought marine pollution and would destory the fishing profit and also the marine environment.

The designer interviewed some fishermen and took photos of the ‘black tides’ to show the problem and raise people’s attention.

/// Red House ////////////////////////////////////

The Red House is a place to gather the handmade designers and help promoting the unique handmade culture in Taiwan. There are 16 designer shops in the Red House and they all are handmade designers. More, there are creative and original market during weekends and holidays, which could highly encourage the original designers and provide them a place.

We have done the interview with few individual designers in the Red House. They chose Red House instead of other markets was mainly because the Red House was the first step by the Taipei government to develop the homemade designer market. They thought the Red House could provide them a stable amount of customers and convenient location.

The design concpets of the three designers on this page are also based on their own characteristic. They thought an animal could help presenting themself.

A teddy bear could represent confortable and relax, as every child would like to have a teddy bear toy at home and some may even hold it while sleeping. One the other hand, A rabit didn’t always means weak but strong and confident. I brought some postcards from their shops as i think their design could gave me the feeling of empathy, that i want to share wth my friends.

Beside the above three designers, we have also interviewed two more.

The first one is an interesting shop as they sell some pins and bags based on the old packaging of food, student notebooks or some vintage items. This is very cute as the old stuffs are somehow fashionable.

The owner of the second shop was Hong Konger. This is interesting that she chose to move to Taipei to continue her career instead of staying in Hong Kong.

Compare with those local designers, she thought the Taiwan government has got enough backup for the homemade intustay than Hong Kong. On the other hand, Those local Taiwanese thought that their government could do far more better than persent.

In my opinion, I think the Taiwan government had done a great job on helping to promote and develop the handmade culture. Not only the Red House, there are still some more places in Taiwan provide the designers to work on their career. To compare, Hong Kong still need to work hard on providing more space for the designers to work.

Not only providing a place for holding the event for few times per year, but also providing spme more support on renting workshop or promoting the copy right issue to avoid the illegal copying problem and encourage more individual designers to keep working.

/// Songshan Cultural and Creative Park //////////////

The creative park is originally a cigarette factory since 1937, and it turns into the cultural and creative park in 2010. The place became a legally historical building since 2001, this action shows that the Taiwan government is willing and able to protect the historical building and do further development.

I highly appreciate that the Taiwan government for developing the area and transforming it into a new use of space, I think this kind of historical buildings had their own value still to be exited. It not only helps recording the history behind, but also help showing the beauty of the old architecture.

In this cultural park, we could know the development on the design industry. It got different halls presenting different parts of design. It recorded the design history from 1890 to 2010, from the design for function in 1930 to design for friendly in 1950. Hence, together with the improvement of living standard, in 1970 the designs tended to pay more attention on having fun, and tended to emphasize the fancy part in 1990. More, in the 21th century, the design paid more attention on feelings.

The exhibition could gave me a clearer concept of the design history and let me think more about how to be innovative. Furthermore, another hall in the park shows some classic design in the world, which is remarkable and inspirition.

Apart from the classic, there are another hall shows some new design of the Taiwan designers, like the packaging for night market snacks and the tableware.

The designer cares about the environmental problem and use the recycle material.

Also, another designer thought about the hygiene issue and had a great design on the tableware, the knife, fork and spoon. In my opinion, I think these two are user and environmental friendly that could bring out people’s awareness on the protection and also the beauty of design.

/// Soho Memorial Paper Museum ///////////////////

This museum is quite a special one, that is not located in the sub-urban area, but located in a high accessible location in the city. This is a very interesting idea that could convenient the visitors.

A good location could help increasing the attention of the art and cultural matter.

Imagine every pedestrian could see the museum when they pass by, and some may want to know more about it. Moreover, schools could easily held a day tour for the study of paper. It could not only help promoting the paper culture, but also let people know that every single piece of paper is an artwork, and we need to appreciate the workers and treat them as an artist since this is really not a easy work though. We need to respect every single piece of paper, this is a gift from the predecessor.

In the workshop, the teacher taught us how to make a paper. And we found that the natural color of a paper is blue instead of white. Furthermore, it is not hard to make recycle paper at home. Just using a blender could mix the paper with the water, and use a little tool could make the shape of paper. This is a easy method for every parent and their children to learn about recycling.

/// MOCA Taipei //////////////////////////////////

The MOCA Taipei was also once a historical archtecture before and now transformed into an art museum since 2001. It was holding the 10th Taishin Arts Award Exhibition while we had a visit, and they are very kind to offer the tour guide to explain every detail in the exhibition.

In this exhibition, the most inspiriting part of art for me is the drama. As I didn’t have much attention on drama before, through this exhibition, I found that drama is a great idea to share the feelings and core concept from the designers or artists. One memorable drama only allows one audience to attend every show.

Hence, this audience would become one of the actors of the drama. He could have his very own obtainment and comment from the show.

This provides me a new idea of doing artwork or design. It is a good idea for letting the audience to participate and feel by themselves could help enhancing their feeling and awareness of the issue. Also, this is my favorite part of the whole trip.

/// Taiwan Fine Arts Museum ////////////////////////

It is also a common visit to the Taiwan Fine Arts Museum on the fourth day. There are many thoughtful artpieces, however the museum didn’t allow visitors to take any photos.

There are sculptures, illustrations, drawings, photographies and some studies. One study is about the ‘Clean Hong Kong Campaign’. It mainly focus on the ‘Litterbug’ in 1970s, and let us to re-think the ‘useless’ policy may have their own power to affect citizen.

/// Huashan 1914 Creative Park /////////////////////

The creative park was once the wine factory built in 1914 during the Japanese manages period, producing the sake. On 1st April 1987, the factory could not continued due to the increasing land rent, and it then became the creative park since 2005.

This is also a good example showing the Taiwan government is willing and able to protect the historical buildings and develop them. It helps keeping the history behind and also providing a convenient location for the creative activities.

The park was holding a graduation show of few design school by the mean time, and it provided a quiet environment for the visitors to enjoy the exhibition there. More, there were few display items was also shown in the Young Designers Exhibition also, but it was too crowded for us to view them before. And it is another chance for us to see them in detail.

There was a sketchbook beside some exhibits that could help encouraging people to leave a message or comment about their work. This is a good practice as some people may not be confident enough to hear or talk face to face. And the sketchbook could provided a confortable way to communicate.

This is one of my favorite exhibit, the artist used black to draw the illustrations to express his own feeling, which is also most people’s feeling when we are down or feeling sad. I love this so much because I appreciate the artist’s words and the drawing, which matched so well.

/// National Palace Museum ////////////////////////

I have visited the National Palace Museum when I was 10 years old, I didn’t have much memory about that visit but i remember that it should be a solemn and quiet place to see and enjoy the beauty of the historical artpieces. However, I found that the museum was now become crowded and noisy space that is full of visitors.

This time, I mainly focus on the calligraphy. The Chinese calligraphy is a great invention in the past, which could show the position of the calligrapher.

A graceful handwriting could represent the writer’s training and accomplishment.

Reading the calligraphy could let yourself be more peaceful and concentrate.

More, we went to see the Jadeite Cabbage with Insects. This sculpture is so famous because of the carve work could matched with the raw material, the jade.

Also, the cabbage looks like a real one, so fresh.