Located in Yingge District, an area where potters began gathering more than 200 years ago, YCM is overseen by the local government’s Cultural Affairs Department. The largest museum in Taiwan dedicated to ceramics drew 720,000 visitors last year.
In its early days, YCM focused on organizing the Yingge Ceramics Festival—an important platform for promoting the local ceramics industry. The once-sleepy town subsequently reinvented itself as a tourist hotspot of international renown.
Taiwan Ceramics Biennale is a YCM signature event. (Courtesy of YCM)
YCM reached a milestone in 2004 when it took over the task of organizing the Taiwan Ceramics Biennale from National Museum of History in Taipei City. Wu Hsiu-tzu, director of the museum, said event is no longer the exclusive domain of homegrown artists. Works are now welcomed from overseas talents, greatly enhancing the facility’s global reach and profile, he added.
According to Wu, the biennale is considered one of the four best ceramics competitions in the world, along with those in Italy, Japan and South Korea. Echoing these sentiments, Taiwan ceramist Huang Wei-chien described YCM as a mecca for aspiring ceramists, adding that the museum punches above its weight in the prestige stakes.
Youngsters try their hand at pottery with the assistance of YCM personnel. (Staff photo/Chin Hung-hao)
The museum’s residency program, launched in 2009, is also highly touted. To date, 101 ceramists from around the world have taken part, with works made during residencies bolstering YCM’s collection of roughly 3,000 items.
In 2018, YCM hosted the general assembly of the International Academy of Ceramics, further boosting its status globally. Geneva-headquartered IAC is the largest organization of its kind in the world dedicated to facilitating interaction among ceramists, curators and industry professionals.
Next year, the museum will initiate a resident artist exchange with Clayarch Gimhae Museum in South Korea. In addition, it signed a pact earlier this year with the European Ceramic Workcenter in the Netherlands with the aim of starting a residency exchange program in 2021.
Wu said more effort is required to keep Taiwan at the forefront of the global ceramics field. But by building on what has already been achieved, YCM is certain to continue gaining prominence going forward, he added. (OC-E) (By Oscar Chung)
Members of the International Academy of Ceramics attend a 2018 lecture on the global influence of Asian ceramics in Taiwan. (Courtesy of YCM)
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(This article is adapted from “Centering on Ceramics” in the November/December 2020 issue of Taiwan Review. The Taiwan Review archives dating to 1951 are available online.)