8

Prime Arts

Wednesday, May 4, 2016 The China Post

Signboards in traditional markets made new to highlight each shop’s unique character Design By Angela Chu The China Post

C

ity signage, billboards and company logos make up an important part of cityscapes. In preparation for the World Design Capital Taipei 2016 (WDC, 臺 北世界設計之都), the Taipei City Department of Cultural Affairs has invited local designers to join the “Meet Taipei: Design” (臺 北街角遇見設計) project to help rejuvenate Taipei’s appearance. Amid the hustle and bustle of the city, it also aims to change the way how details are often given little attention to and to encourage residents in taking a look at the streets, alleys and buildings with appreciation for their beauty. Hosted with support from small signboard manufacturers, small, family-run businesses are paired with designers to create signboards that highlight each shops’ unique character. Running since 2013, this year the project focuses on the rennovation of signboards for traditional market stalls in Taipei. By the end of this year, it hopes to complete its 100th signboard. Designers Feng Yu (馮宇), Lin Wei Da (林 韋達) and Aaron Nieh (聶永真) participated in redesigning signboards for the Dazhi Market. Feng Yu expresses hopes of creating lasting impressions on children, allow-

Lin Wei Da Feng Yu Shop owners and designer Feng Yu, first right, stand before the fish stall with its new sign of bold bright colors compared to the old signboard’s dullness.  Courtesy of WDC

ing traditions to transcend generations. One of Yu’s works of the Wan De Meat Shop (萬 德瘦肉號), is styled in black and gold hues, with black being symbolic of black pork and gold the premium quality of the shop’s products. Illustrator Lin Wei Da’s new logo for the shop “A9 Taiwanese Premium Meats” (鼎 A9台灣肉類食品名產), a store that sells a

great variety of meat products, echos the manner in which the products are normally prepared, showing meet cooking inside a vessel. Lin hopes the signboard will encourage people to slow down and reflect on beauty found in ordinary places around us. “Growing up has somehow stopped us from shopping in traditional markets, a place we are all familiar with from our

Lin Wei Da uses elements of the products to create a new logo for this shop that sells processed meat products.  Courtesy of WDC

childhoods,” said Aaron Nieh, who was in charge of the new signboard for Chia-Lin Handmade Dumplings (佳齡手工水餃), which features a lively and distinct dumpling figure that dangles outside the shop . Beatrice Hsieh, commissioner of the department of cultural affairs, spoke of the inclusion of the hardworking Taiwanese spirit incorporated into the signboards. “Markets are an essential part of our lives. With respect towards the people working here, let’s help make their surroundings more beautiful,” she marked. ■

Aaron Nieh The actual size seafood figures not only attract attention, but also stand for the freshness of products provided here.  Courtesy of WDC

‘Meet Taipei: Design’ rejuvenates our cityscape Design key to 21st century: Hsieh Exclusive Interview By Dimitri Bruyas The China Post

T

hrough the two themes of “Adaptive City” and “Design in Motion,” Taipei City is looking to build a more livable city, and beyond leaving a design legacy that will last long after 2016. The international event could further act as a catalyst for the city’s existing industrial system, leading to the creation of more investment opportunities and job openings in the design sector. True to this ambition, Commissioner Pei-ni Beatrice Hsieh of the Department of Cultural Affairs, Taipei City, recently sat with The China Post’s senior editor, Dimitri Bruyas, to discuss the World Design Capital Taipei event and the capital city’s ability to continuously reinvent itself into a mélange of both urban and rural life over the past 50 years. Contrary to many capital cities around the world, you can easily step out of lush, green mountains into the bustling life of Taipei, whereas the city is a world leader in creative design and innovation, and a cultural hubbub for the arts. Here is an edited transcript of their conversation.

Dimitri Bruyas: What is the significance of Taipei designation as this year’s World Design Capital? Commissioner Hsieh: I believe that there are a few reasons why Taipei successfully won the title of the World Design Capital. The previous WDCs — Torino, Seoul, Helsinki and Cape Town — were all undergoing transformations when they applied. They were trying to express themselves and trying to find alternative solutions through design. Instead of boosting public interest in design through the WDC, however, they aimed at boosting their own confidence, letting them demonstrate that they are a turning point that calls for change. What is the significance of design in the 21st century? Originally, objects were designed according to their function. As long as we stick to this definition, we didn’t need to do anything as we had accumulated so many years of experience on how to create objects. Nowadays, design not only departs from an object’s appearance and function, but also expands beyond the “real world,” like in virtual reality and with social networks. This means that the “unseen” is equally important in order to bring forth closer interactions between people. Through such interactions, there are even

more opportunities lying ahead than before. In other words, design brings expectations, connects the past with the future and challenges reality. Is Taipei ‘design friendly’? A friendly city should be friendly to everyone, and not just friendly toward me for the sake of being friendly. The real question is: How do you experience ‘friendly design’ throughout the city? To this extent, we need to give design a sense of existing, and then, create the possibility of a first encounter through our urban design projects. For instance, the New Color for Transformer Boxes project, which is part of the wider Urban Landscape Planning project, makes Taipei’s electrical transformer boxes, cycling paths, and public squares more aesthetically and environmentally appealing. With the support of Taipei Power Company, to date 62 pairs of transformer boxes along five major roads have been earmarked for a revamp. The public is encouraged to help select final color schemes via Facebook. In another project, we help connect small, family-run businesses with designers to upgrade small shops’ signboards. Designers consult with business owners

Commissioner Beatrice Hsieh, second left, Dazhi Market Council Chairman Huang Hsiang-Chin, third left, and designers Lin Wei Da, center, and Aaron Nieh, third right, unveil the new signboards in Dazhi Market.  Courtesy of WDC

to create signboards that highlight their shops’ unique character. What are your expectations for WDC? First of all, as Taipei has many communities, I wish all these communities can be friendlier, better, more efficient. We can start the changes one by one. Don’t mistake them as experiments. I do not want others to regard them as experiments. They are not experiments, but projects that we can join in to make a change. Commu-

Retrospective of Chinese painter’s works features his signature red curtain symbols of the ‘Curtain and Ink and Wash Research Lectures’ series

Unveiling Zhu Wei’s mundane life Exhibition By Dimitri Bruyas The China Post

nities can be a new binding, a new element. This is the first goal I want to realize. I want to overcome our differences. Secondly, I am wondering whether design can help fill the gap between private sector and public agency. Take those store signs for example, we all know people hate those signs, but how can we make it look better? Design is our solution. Design helps us tackle those stands. And the third is humanity. Design should be combined with humanistic concern. ■

Discover ‘Rise and Legacy of Qin Culture’

educated at the People’s Liberation Army Academy of Art, the Beijing Film Academy, and the Chinese National Academy of Arts. He currently lives and works in Beijing. ■

T

he Asia Art Center Taipei II (亞洲藝術 中心——臺北二館) showcases a solo exhibition of works by acclaimed Chinese painter Zhu Wei (朱偉), known for combining traditional Gongbi — a precise, realist technique in Chinese painting — with contemporary painting, through May 29. Curated by Lu Hong (魯虹), executive director of the Wuhan United Art Museum (武漢合美 術館), the exhibition is a retrospective of Zhu’s works spanning 10 years that includes his signature red curtain symbols from the “Curtain and Ink and Wash Research Lectures” series. The latter showcases his maturity and exemplifies a deliberate simplicity compared to earlier works, which contained richer and more vivid elements. Zhu’s trajectory toward simplicity in his recent artwork represents the mundane of life while engaging in a reflection on contemporary social issues. The artist aims to shed light on such contemporary social issues in order to highlight the fundamental link between history and contemporary ideology. Zhu, born in 1966 in Beijing, China, was

Terracotta warriors nearly two meters tall from the Qin Dynasty will be on display in Taiwan for the first time.  Courtesy of National Palace Museum

( Above)‘CHINA CHINA’ (中國中國), 2016, Fiberreinforced plastic (玻璃鋼), 43 x 20 x 30 cm ( Right)‘Ink and Wash Research Lectures series’ (水墨研 究課徒系列), 2014, Ink and color on paper (水墨), 104.5 x 68 cm  Courtesy of Asia Art Center

A

lthough the Qin Dynasty fell after the reigns of just two emperors, the people of Qin left an extraordinarily rich historical legacy that forms the basis of modern Chinese civilization. As we all agree that to see the future, one must look to the past, we recommend you to visit the upcoming “Terracotta: The Rise and Legacy of Qin Culture” (秦．俑－秦文化與兵馬 俑特展) exhibition at the National Palace Museum that opens on May 7. ■ ► www.mediasphere.com.tw ► (02) 6616-9938