Photos by William Chen.
Taiwan:
Crafting
an Identity
STO R Y BY
Jennifer Scanlan
Top:
Designer: Jen-feng Chen
Craft artist: Kuo-long Lin
A Sense of Tea teapots,
cotton-wrapped,
glazed and fired, white
cup in opening.
Middle:
Designer:
Ola Hermansson
Craft artist:
Li-shu Huang
IKEA
plus Hermann
lacquer chair.
Below:
Designer: Hsiao-ying Lin
Craft artist: Jun-ching Tang
Moon Rabbit cup, black
clay, based on a Chinese
fairytale.
There was a time when “Made in Taiwan”
was synonymous with cheap trinkets and
plastic toys. Taiwan has since reinvented
its economy, focusing on technology and
computers. But alongside the high-tech in-
dustry, the Taiwanese have also been re-
emphasizing their craft traditions as a way
to construct a national identity—an identity
complicated in recent years by political
power struggles.
With the exception of a short period
of colonization by the Dutch in the 1600s,
the island of Taiwan was ruled by mainland
China from the 1400s to 1895, when control
was ceded to the Japanese. Control went
back to the Republic of China
(ROC)
in
1945, and in 1949, when Mao Zedong’s forc-
es took over on the mainland and estab-
lished the People’s Republic of China, the
ROC
government fled to Taiwan and estab-
lished its seat there. Today, China claims
Taiwan as part of its territory, and Taiwan,
whose capital is Taipei, has struggled to es-
tablish itself as an independent nation in the
face of the mainland’s increasingly powerful
international influence. With such political
turbulence at the forefront of Taiwan’s
world presence, many in the international
art community may be unaware of the excit-
ing craft movement happening there.
The Taiwanese craft artist with perhaps
the most international acclaim is Ah Leon,
whose exquisite trompe l’ceil ceramic tea-
pots, are in collections all over the world.
Ah Leon has set up a studio in the village
of Pingxi, Taipei County, where he can
produce his latest works, large-scale instal-
lations, most recently recreating, life-size
and entirely in clay, the rustic desks and
chairs of his childhood schoolroom. “I grew
up in the south of Taiwan, in a time when
traditional crafts were everywhere,” Ah
Leon reflects. “The new time did wash out
many good crafts, and plastic took over.
W e lost many craft aesthetics, but the foun-
dation was still there, along with old mas-
ters showing and maintaining their good
techniques. This is the basis of Taiwanese
crafts today.”
The Yingge Ceramics Museum displays
both historical and contemporary works.
Located about an hour southwest of Taipei,
the town of Yingge has been a ceramics
center for 200 years. In addition to industrial
production, the city has focused in recent
years on artistic ceramics. In 1999 the city
developed the tourist-oriented Old Street,
lined with galleries selling everything from
souvenirs to expensive antiques. The
museum opened to the public in 2000, and
since then has displayed contemporary
ceramics by both Taiwanese and interna-
tional artists. The museum has a strong ed-
ucational focus, offering classes in large,»
aug/sep 10
am erican craft 069
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