The Tainan Cultural and Creative Industry Park opened July 17, making it the fifth facility in Taiwan dedicated to the development of local cultural industries, according to the Council for Cultural Affairs.
“The council will work with the Tainan City Government and local artists to turn the park into a platform for the development of creativity in the 400-year-old former capital of Taiwan,” said CCA official Fang Jy-shiuh.
The park opened with an exhibition, running until July 17, on idiosyncratic Tainan folk customs regarding the process of life—from birth, the coming of adulthood, marriage and death—while making use of new technologies in presentation.
Kaohsiung-based Western music group Taiwan Artists Ensemble and student animation artists from Tainan’s Kun Shan University also collaborated to create a multimedia artwork fusing tales from Taiwan’s prehistory with classical music.
“Blending old and new, these works show that the creative energy in the old Taiwanese capital is boundless,” Fang said. “We expect the park’s services to stimulate artistic potential, link business with local talents and help add economic value to cultural items.”
According to the CCA, the park was created from a complex surrounding a historic red brick building from the 1900s, the site of a Japanese-era (1895-1945) branch of the Monopoly Bureau of the Taiwan Governor’s Office. Located close to the city’s main train station, the compound includes a former Taiwan Railway Administration warehouse and dormitory.
Four other cultural and creativity industry parks have been established in the past decade, in Taipei, Taichung, Chiayi and Hualien, the CCA said. All were built in space left unused by the Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Monopoly Bureau, now Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Co. (THN)