Taiwan Today

Community museums are enhancing the diversity of Taiwan’s cultural landscape.
 

Astroll around the historic Zhongzheng District of Taipei City provides a tantalizing glimpse into the splendid history of Taiwan’s capital. Today visitors to the metropolis have an additional reason to explore the neighborhood following the opening of Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Fine Arts in June 2020. Housed in a building dating back to the Japanese colonial era (1895-1945), the museum opens a window on a collection of rarely seen artwork procured by entrepreneur Lin Ching-fu (林清富).
 

“The museum strives to collect pieces from different stages in an artist’s career to document their evolution over time,” said Lin Kristin Chun-chi (林純姬), daughter of the entrepreneur and chairperson of Lin N. W. Foundation for Culture and Education, which funds the museum. The institution currently boasts of an archive of nearly 400 paintings, with many created by national icons like Chen Cheng-po (陳澄波) and Li Mei-shu (李梅樹).
 

Shung Ye, staffed by only five employees, is one of the newest additions to Taiwan’s growing ranks of small museums. Although they operate on a more modest scale than internationally recognized entities like National Palace Museum in Taipei and National Museum of Natural Science in the central city of Taichung, such local institutions collectively energize the country’s cultural scene and improve public access to artwork and historical artifacts.
 

The Council for Cultural Affairs, forerunner of the Ministry of Culture, began ramping up efforts to encourage the development of community museums in 2002, according to Chen Yung-chieh (陳雍杰), chief of the Cultural Resources Division at Tainan City Government’s Cultural Affairs Bureau (CAB) in southern Taiwan. As a result, small-scale institutions have proliferated across the country, today accounting for the vast majority of Tainan’s 57 museums. As the number of such institutions has steadily grown, the CAB has subsequently shifted its focus to enriching existing museums and intensifying marketing rather than constructing new facilities, in line with the central government’s cultural policy, Chen said.
 

Local Representation

Community museums are uniquely able to reflect regional characteristics and often have a close connection to the surrounding environment. At Shung Ye, for example, more than half of the paintings depict landscapes, particularly of northern Taiwan’s Tamsui River, which Lin could see from his childhood home. Meanwhile on the other side of the river in New Taipei City, Taishan Doll Museum presents a fascinating slice of the area’s history. The facility funded by the municipal government and run by two district office staffers pays tribute to the town’s former production prowess. “It embodies the collective memories of the community and serves as a reminder that Taiwan was once dubbed the kingdom of toy manufacturing,” museum director Lu Mei-chiang (盧美姜) said.
 

The town’s glory days as a major doll producer began in 1967 when U.S.-based multinational company Mattel Inc., the creator of Barbie dolls, set up a flagship factory. Thousands of workers were hired to sew buttons, cut fabric and fashion hair from nylon threads. The local economy thrived, and at one time as much as a third of Taishan’s populace was involved in the production of dolls for export. Then in 1987 Mattel moved operations to China due to the growing cost of labor in Taiwan. The museum opened 17 years later, allowing the public to relive the area’s past as a Barbie town.
 

Similarly, the municipal museum at Zuojhen Fossil Park in Tainan is inseparable from the local community, Chen said. Opened in 2019 near an archeological site where fossils over 400,000 years old were first unearthed in the 1930s, the museum features a large collection of prehistoric remains that have attracted generations of scientists to Zuojhen and shaped the rural location’s identity. Differentiating the museum from other natural history establishments are its joint facilities with a newly built elementary school. Sections of the campus overlap with the fossil park and children attending the school can freely access museum exhibitions.
 

Standing Out

Although relatively new and operated by a team of only six people, Zuojhen’s family-oriented museum has made a name for itself with its engaging interactive displays and guided tours to a nearby creek where fossils can still be found. According to Chen, the institution has become one of the top two most popular and profitable municipal museums, attracting nearly 500,000 visitors in its first year of operation.
 

The doll museum in New Taipei likewise seeks to provide one-of-a-kind experiences. To this end, the institution offers an annual three-month course on dress making for dolls. Each year focuses on a new theme covering styles ranging from traditional clothing of Taiwan’s indigenous peoples and royal Qing dynasty (1644-1911) raiment to American Wild West attire. Each student creates two dresses by the end of the course, one of which joins the institution’s ever-expanding collection.
 

Shung Ye, too, strives to distinguish itself from other museums by holding specialized exhibitions and co-organizing day trips combining a museum visit with a guided tour of the historic neighborhood. It is also working to develop a database of recorded artist interviews for future use by art historians. Among its latest endeavors is a mobile museum called White Cube. Exhibiting select paintings from Shung Ye’s collection, it made its debut at Art Taipei—one of Taiwan’s major art shows—in October 2020 and is slated to move beyond the city next year.
 

Visibility Boost

Local government agencies like Tainan’s CAB are getting creative to promote museums as well. “People come to this city for its historic sites and spectacular cuisine, but actually, its museums are equally impressive. We’re trying to raise the national profile of these institutions,” said Chen, adding that Tainan has more such facilities than any other city or county in the country.
 

Bearing this goal in mind, the bureau organized the first edition of Tainan Museums Festival in 2017. The monthlong annual event kicks off each May 18 on International Museum Day. It aims to heighten the visibility of the municipality’s museum sector by promoting themed trips catering to a broad range of interests. Tours aimed at Instagrammers, for instance, stop by institutions offering striking photo opportunities.
 

“Community museums offer intriguing glimpses into niche subjects that give visitors a deeper understanding of local culture,” Chen said. Great examples of this are the institutions affiliated with Ciji and Donglong Temples in the city’s Xuejia and Beimen Districts, respectively. The former features a valuable collection of vividly glazed Koji pottery, a type of folk art often seen adorning the country’s temples, while the latter focuses on the tradition of worshipping Wang Ye, a folk religion practiced in the south that’s best known for its annual boat burning ritual. Both museums are the only of their kind in Taiwan.
 

Promotional efforts by the central and municipal governments are stoking the fast-growing interest in Taiwan’s unique identity among academics and the public, which is in turn accelerating the rise of small-scale museums across the country. “Museums that showcase distinctive regional elements are receiving more attention than ever,” CAB Director-general Yeh Tse-shan (葉澤山) said. “These institutions will play an increasingly bigger role as the country continues delving into its diverse local cultures.”

Write to Oscar Chung at mhchung@mofa.gov.tw