Taiwan Today

In the section that houses Chinese publications in Chatswood Library in Willoughby City, Australia, visitors will find a large display cabinet for the Taiwan Collection. Since the library opened in the metropolitan area of Sydney in 2011, the cabinet has been used to showcase a variety of Taiwanese artworks that have included pieces from famed glass art studio Liuligongfang and renowned ceramics brand Franz Collection Inc. Sonia Chen (陳淑莪), a director at the Taiwan Collection Association, notes that the display was set up to honor Taiwanese immigrants who donated to the construction of the public library. “The collection gives us a chance to promote Taiwanese culture,” she says. “It’s a demonstration of Taiwan’s soft power.”

The association’s efforts to share Taiwanese art with local residents go beyond managing the library display, however. Every year, it chooses a specific theme to explore and organizes a large event that exhibits commercial designs, creations by individual artists and items from private collections. This year, the focus is on paper. Dubbed Fun Paper Art, the two-day event will be held on November 15 and 16 at the Civic Pavilion next to the library. Taiwanese artists and papermaking companies will showcase their artworks and products and set up activities to entertain and inform visitors.

Chin Tang Paperware Co. is one of the participating companies as well as a sponsor of the event. The firm grew out of a paper and cardboard packaging workshop established by its founder Huang Fang-liang (黃芳亮) in 1984, and now manufactures a variety of industrial paper products. The Carton King Creativity Park, which is owned and operated by the company, offers an insight into how Chin Tang thinks outside the box. Upon arrival at the park in central Taiwan’s Taichung City, visitors are greeted by replicas of world-renowned landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower, the Leaning Tower of Pisa and Dubai’s Burj Al Arab hotel. According to the company, the pieces, which are made of paperboard that is fireproof and waterproof, are intended to enlighten people about the diverse applications of paper.

Visitors to the park will be further amazed by the gift shop. Beyond typical paper products such as file folders and notebooks, the store features a range of items not typically made from the material, including assembly models of famous landmarks, historic buildings and locomotives. Some of the other popular offerings include paper Christmas trees, clocks, lamps featuring images of famous local and international landscapes, and stools made of cardboard. Visitors can also enjoy a cup of coffee in the park’s café, where all the tables, chairs and lamps are made of cardboard.

While Chin Tang will demonstrate the diverse applications of its commercially produced paper at the Australian event, Suho Memorial Paper Museum will focus on handmade paper and the techniques used to make it. Opened in Taipei City in 1995, the museum is named after Chen Su-ho (陳樹火), who founded Chang Chuen Cotton Paper Manufacturing Co. in 1959 in Puli Township in central Taiwan’s Nantou County. Puli is an ideal location for producing paper due to the mineral content of its water. The papermaking process requires large quantities of water, and the mineral content is critical to the final product. Too much iron, for instance, and the paper turns yellow. Due in large part to the water found in the area, the papermaking industry developed rapidly in Puli after the Japanese set up Taiwan’s first paper mill there in the 1930s.

By the 1970s, Puli boasted around 50 handmade paper factories. This level of success did not last, however, due largely to the increasing popularity of machine-made paper. Firms also moved manufacturing facilities overseas to take advantage of lower production costs. In order to maintain its competitiveness, Chang Chuen turned to producing machine-made paper, though it continued to manufacture the handmade variety as well. To the company’s founder, producing handmade paper was not simply a way of making a living, but an aspect of Chinese culture that needed to be preserved. Chen had been planning to set up a museum to promote handmade paper, but did not have a chance to realize that dream as he perished in an airplane crash in 1990. However, his children opened the museum five years after their father passed away in recognition of his contributions to the industry in Taiwan.

Hands-on Activities

In addition to various types of handmade paper and items created from the material, Suho Memorial Paper Museum has a small-scale paper mill that gives visitors an opportunity to gain some hands-on papermaking experience. The museum will set up a similar mill at the event in Australia to allow visitors to experience a centuries-old papermaking technique that involves lowering a bamboo screen into a vat filled with paper pulp and then shaking the screen to and fro until a flat, thin layer of pulp has formed on the screen’s surface.

Working with paper is more about fun than cultural conservation for artist Ammon Yo (游政達), who will be exhibiting his paper figurines at the two-day show in Willoughby. Still, Yo has a deep appreciation for handmade paper, and uses the material rather than industrial paper when making his pieces due to its greater flexibility, longer fibers and more natural color. To create his figurines, Yo affixes layers of handmade paper to a metal wire frame before completing the pieces by adding individually crafted paper items such as feathers for birds or clothes for people.

Born in 1967, Yo started making paper figurines at the age of 17. After spending almost two decades developing his skills in his free time, he decided to become a full-time artist. Like many hobbyists, he created an online blog to share his works, and the positive feedback that he received encouraged him to dedicate his professional life to the practice. At the beginning of his artistic career, Yo opened a small store to display and sell his works, but soon realized that he was not interested in operating the business. “The problem was that all my pieces are unique and special to me, so I didn’t want to sell any of them,” he says. “Meanwhile, running the shop was no fun and it took all my time away from creating new works.” After around a year, he shuttered his store and started teaching paper sculpture to earn a living.

Yo’s figurines are mostly depictions of characters from Chinese history or birds and plants found in Taiwan. As he tries to make his works appear as realistic as possible, Yo spends a lot of time doing research before he actually begins working on a piece. At present, he is developing a new series depicting Taiwanese world champions in all sorts of fields from baking to sports. The artist’s dedication to his craft has earned him a great deal of admiration. Several of his pieces are showcased alongside other outstanding artworks on the Exhibition of Cyber Island, Taiwan—an online platform funded by the government’s Taiwan Digital Archives Expansion Project and e-Learning and Digital Archives Program.

Recently, Yo has also become known for designing paper dresses. In early 2013, the artist created a set of 13 evening gowns for a paper exhibition held in Yilan County, northern Taiwan. “They were all made of regular handmade paper, which meant things could have turned ugly if anything went wrong on the catwalk,” he notes. Fortunately, the gowns remained intact throughout the show, which opened a new business opportunity for Yo. Several wedding industry companies now display his gowns, and the artist is taking fashion design courses at Shih Chien University in Taipei City. Some of the artist’s gowns will also be on display in Australia.

Yo’s artworks will be joined at the Willoughby City show by pieces from Jerry Jiang (江裕斌), a fellow paper figurine artist who has turned his hobby into his profession. A former military police officer, Jiang decided to change careers after serving in the Republic of China Armed Forces for two decades, retiring in 2011 at the age of 42. “After all those years, I really wanted a job that didn’t require wearing a uniform,” he says.

Jiang, who uses corrugated paper to craft his figurines, also found that the easiest and least expensive way to start his art career was through social media. He began by setting up a blog to showcase his pieces along with the process he uses to create them. The subjects of his works include everything from cartoon characters and historic figures to animals and motorcycles. Jiang also produces some more functional creations. “A cartoon figurine is fun to own, but a cartoon figurine that can double as a penholder or cardholder is more marketable,” he says. “That’s important for me because I need to make a living from my craft.”

After receiving numerous positive responses to his posts, Jiang decided to start offering classes. Since then, preparing the assembly kits that he uses to teach his classes has grown into a massive amount of work, and he often requires the assistance of his wife and daughters. Meanwhile, he has been commissioned to design corrugated paper figurines as prototypes for animation firms and as souvenirs. Factoring in the time he spends creating new figurines, Jiang regularly ends up working 12 hours a day. However, the military police officer-turned-artist has no complaints about his busy schedule. “This is definitely more fun than the armed forces,” he says.

Unlike Jiang, fellow Fun Paper Art exhibitor Tsai Xue-ping (蔡雪塀) does not need a box cutter or ruler when sculpting her creations. Tsai practices the Japanese art of chigiri-e, which primarily involves tearing colored paper and using the pieces to create images. The art form requires a lot of pulling, rubbing, scrapping and twisting to turn the paper into the desired shapes and textures. Tsai fell in love with chigiri-e when she first encountered it in 1990, and immediately began devoting her free time to perfecting her skills in the technique. After encountering many bottlenecks to her growth as an artist, such as a lack of reference materials, Tsai decided that she would have to travel to Japan, and made her first trip to learn from master artists there in 1992. In 1994, Tsai became a qualified chigiri-e instructor after passing the relevant examination in Japan.

Since then, Tsai has been busy traveling around Taiwan teaching the art form, oftentimes providing free classes to underprivileged groups. She also imports and dyes cotton paper in large quantities to lower the cost for her students, and has simplified the creative process so that beginners can experience an immediate sense of achievement. What motivates Tsai is simple. “Art makes people happy,” she says. “That’s all the reason I need to promote art.”

Tsai will be taking some of her students to the Australian show, where they and the other visitors will be able to explore a diverse range of Taiwanese paper artworks and products. This event will highlight Taiwan’s expertise in the manufacturing and artistic applications of the material. Most importantly, though, the Taiwanese exhibitors at the event in Willoughby City are sure to provide the Australian audience with an abundance of fascinating art, plenty of cultural insights and a whole lot of fun.

Write to Jim Hwang at cyhuang03@mofa.gov.tw