Caption: 2021 Taiwan Design Expo (courtesy of Hem Hem Media).

The 2021 Taiwan Design Expo officially opened in Chiayi City on December 23. The three main exhibition areas were in the Chiayi Cultural and Creative Industries Park, Chiayi Lumber Factory, and Chiayi Old Prison, all century-old cultural monuments, and extended to the century-old Chiayi Park, providing a total of 13 exhibition galleries. Inspired by the Taiwan Design Expo, the simple ancient Jhuluo City showcased Taiwan’s innate energy in stunning designs. In just over ten days, the exhibition attracted as many as 2.18 million visitors, setting five records in the history of Taiwan Design Expo: 1. The most local curators; 2. The most display of local content; 3. The first time to curate in a prison / temple / art museum; 4. The most exhibition galleries; and 5. The most participation by central ministries.

Respecting the local culture and forming a professional team

Looking back at the planning process in the design expo, the Chiayi City Government’s Cultural Affairs Bureau, which was the main responsible unit, took into consideration the scale of its organization and curating experience, and established an outsourced professional construction management (PCM). The bureau formed a collaborative team with the Taiwan Living Arts Foundation and the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research to help the city government with the overall planning in four major tasks: exhibition positioning, exhibition content, marketing promotion, and administrative coordination. The project was personally supervised by Chiayi Mayor Huang Min-hui, with Secretary-General Chen Yung-Feng of the city government as the chief commander; Director Lu Yi-Chun of the Cultural Affairs Bureau as chief curator; Director Chen Kuo-Cheng of C-LAB as general director; and Kung Shu-Chang, Hugh Hu, Chen Cheng-Che, Lo Yu-Fen, and Liu Chen-Jung assisting as an interdisciplinary team of consultants. In collaboration with the Taiwan Design Research Institute, the team promoted the execution of exhibition tasks.

Field positioning design and harmony to turn limitations into advantages

This is not only the first time for Chiayi City to organize a design expo; it is also the first time for Changhua, Yunlin, and Chiayi counties. The Cultural Affairs Bureau and the PCM adopted a consensus meeting and industry survey for the project. At the same time, the first Chiayi Creative Hub established a cultural and creative industry counseling office in Chiayi City to gain an in-depth understanding of industry trends, offer a long-term platform for local voices, gather various resources for providing counseling and consultation, and plan a design expo that belongs to Chiayi residents of all ages to share the future of the city.

In alignment with the design expo’s call to “introduce design into urban governance”, the context of municipal development was incorporated, and the overall structural tiers of the expo were sorted out. In addition, the theme and content of the expo were also set according to the spatial features of the exhibition galleries. Given the lack of large-scale exhibition space in the urban area, the expo was laid out in the form of a ribbon cluster to draw the crowd into the neighborhoods. In this way, visitors can meet the power of old houses and revitalize old buildings such as the Chiayi Old Prison that the Cultural Affairs Bureau has been promoting and discover wonderful corners of Chiayi where the old and new fuse.

The three major exhibition areas in this design expo mainly began at the Cultural and Creative Industries Park, including the train station, Chiayi Art Museum, and the Vision Station. Based on the theme of “Tomorrow’s Vision”, the momentum of the exhibit designs expounded the past, present and future of Chiayi City’s humanities, politics, economy. The middle section of the exhibition was centered around the Chiayi Lumber Factory area, including the Chiayi Garage Park, the Chiayi Municipal Museum, and the Hinoki Village. Based on the theme of “Industrial Reconstruction”, the exhibits examined Chiayi’s forestry and timber industry, ranging from transportation, industry and craftsmanship, and recent achievements in the revitalization of the wood industry. The final section of the exhibition was located in the Chiayi Old Prison and its dormitory complex, and the two-hundred-year-old Chiayi Park. Based on the blueprint of City Rebirth, the exhibits depicted the great innovations of a small city, from historical scenes of prison administration to the fusion of placemaking.

After anchoring the main exhibition areas, the exhibition activities were spread outside the confines of the framework and deep into communities in order to extend the effects of the expo. For example, the well-known Cheng Huang Temple and Di-Zang Temple, and the Fresh in East Market, an activity held by the local independent private youth group, were included to bring the expo into the market and temples so as to attract visitors into the ordinary lives of the people.

 Tapping into the local spirit and gathering diverse creativity

The Cultural Affairs Bureau and PCM also decided to break away from tradition and devised various mechanisms to invite young designers to return to their hometowns and recruit original creative teams from Chiayi. For example, the Field School, which is deeply involved in local cultural activities, and Concentric Design, which focuses on drawing ventures to southern Taiwan, helped to extend the positive effect of the Cultural Affairs Bureau’s Free Chiayi Old Prison promotion in 2020. Once again adopting eco-sustainability in material use, they turned the shut-down old prison into a magical reality – the Jail Hostel. From the forestry industry to the wood industry, designers are also matched with traditional crafts and industries to open the future industrial momentum of the ONE WOOD 2.0 project.

In addition, new creative Chiayi stars who have migrated to northern Taiwan were discovered. They boldly accepted the challenge of the new generation Ordinary Editorial Room to construct heart-warming stories of hometown memories, people, and food of the Just Right City through written words. In the stunning City Aesthetics Gallery in the expo, which adhered to a low-key design that respects traditional beliefs and religious culture, Elephant Design led people from all walks of life to look down low and up high to explore all kinds of classical designs behind the incense smoke, thus revealing the exquisite and delicate side of the young generation.

With Taiwan Designers’ Web at the helm, the Art Museum led six design teams to introduce speculative design, industrial design, and universal design into the Beneath the Surface contemporary art as a discussion of public spaces in a city. The Timberized Chiayi: A Special Exhibition on Modern Wooden Architecture at the Municipal Museum was jointly implemented by the Taiwan University of Science and Technology and a team of architects. They presented the knowledge and trends in new wooden architecture to led people from all walks of life to explore the sustainability of wooden architecture and new models of wooden cities around the world.

To attract visitors into the neighborhood, Our Theatre and Horizon Multimedia were also commissioned to perform the Street Performance at Chiayi City, a series of performances based on local living circles. Coupled with mini cultural tours, tour guides led visitors to explore all kinds of hidden interests in the city alleys.

 With urban revitalization as starting point to create the local design

The 2021 Taiwan Design Expo showcased the unique design creativity of Chiayi City and conveyed a variety of philosophies. The first was respecting local culture and diverse aesthetics: In historical sites such as the Chiayi Old Prison, City God Temple and Di-Zang Temple, instead of using subtractive aesthetics, culture and the common memories of the ordinary people are respected. Through temporary construction and aided design methods, the public is helped to understand the multiple aspects of aesthetics. The second was breaking through boundaries and encouraging cross-domain innovation: Architecture, art, museology, literature and history research, text editing, performing arts, and even local catering and cooking teams were invited to participate in the expo so that cross-domain talents and professionals can boost the creation of a local curation, and subsequently spread the seeds of industrial design innovation.

Caption: First ever Temple Exhibition in the Taiwan Design Expo – the Di-Zang Temple of Jiuhua Mountain in the City Aesthetics Gallery (Courtesy of Elephant Design).

Caption: Jail Hostel (Courtesy of Hem Hem Media).

Caption: Just Right City (Courtesy of Yanfu Image Studio).

Caption: Just Right City (Courtesy of Yanfu Image Studio).

Caption: First ever Temple Exhibition in the Taiwan Design Expo – the Chiayi Cheng Huang Temple in the City Aesthetics Gallery (Courtesy of Elephant Design).

Caption: Chiayi Art Museum - Beneath the Surface. (Courtesy of Taiwan Designers’ Web Studio; Photo by Hem Hem Media).