“ONE MAP – TAIWAN DESIGN ARTS EXHIBITION” is featured as one of Kwang Hwa Information and Culture Center’s ‘Taiwan Month’ programmes this year. The exhibition will take place from 12 to 20 October 2019 at independent art venue Parallel Space. Within nine days, a series of talks by Taiwanese and Hong Kong speakers and workshops at openground will be held during weekends.
ONE MAP exhibition explores the birth of emerging brands and aesthetics pursuit by tracing the island’s terrain; it charts the unified cultural landscape and creative map of modern Taiwanese design and lifestyle. The ‘Treasure Island of the East’ has a unique geography of mountain ranges, forests and ocean with thriving ecology, which inspires nature-driven designs and installations through the forming of sustainable relationships between nature and native. Design highlights include Singular Concept’s Linear Flora lighting display at Ping Dong’s Light Festival which won Golden A’ Design Award as well as Dezeen 2019 awardee The Forest BIG’s architectural marvel Rebirth Project.
Initiated by Fane Lee, the curator of ONE MAP exhibition and founder of cross-cultural creative agency Yolk In Your Plate, with the aim to showcase Taiwanese cultural charm through the language of design, the exhibition contains geographical and cultural implications. Both Chinese ‘脈’ and English ‘MAP’ imply a mapping methodology in ‘branch’, ‘system’ and ‘continuation’ represented by the nine variant brands from one singular vein. Divided into three themes, ‘Mountain Range’, ‘Sea View’ and ‘Forest Pulse’, the exhibition introduces indigenous resources harness that is irreplaceable and demonstrates an organic creative prowess to be reckoned with.
Designs of Mountains and Seas as Miniature Taiwanese Landscapes
The design process from material collection to craftsmanship is introduced through hand drawn manuscripts, raw materials analysis and crafting procedures, highlighting respective brand stories and aesthetic pursuit to visualize Taiwan design on a micro level. Exhibits includes award-winning Singular Concept, danzo studio, KIMU design, STUDIO LIM, Kamaro’an and the creative cult favourite Paper Object.
Forests are Creative Laboratory and Macro Cross-disciplinary Ecology between Corporations and Independent Creators
The Forest BIG, located in the foothill zone of Miaoli, Taiwan, is a forest aesthetic experiment academy. The concept “the forest is large, I am small” hopes to teach people a humble and respectful attitude through in-depth experiments and unconventional workshops to learn coexisting with natural environments; Yanzhi searches far and wide for the island’s culinary, olfactory and colourful experience to preserve a cultural taste like poetic love gestures that marks generations of agriculture; along with music curation by experimental electronic musician-artist 44minus22’s for the three exhibition themes – a spiritual guidance to look into inner souls, a resonating wild heart with an innate desire to explore.
This exhibition uses the premium electronics accessory brand Moshi’s high-performance Avanti on-ear headphones, designed and made in Taiwan, offering full-bodied sound signature in music and films. In line with the exhibition, Eslite Bookstore will introduce books and magazines related to Taiwanese design, aesthetic lifestyle, and cultural travel for a limited time at openground. Visitors who attend the exhibition, talks or workshops will win a chance for a 2D/1N getaway at CMP Village or China Airlines round trip tickets for Taiwan.
