Preface
What is the deeper purpose of public art on campus? Is it merely to beautify the campus environment? Is it just to commemorate the gradually disappearing visible cultural landscape of the school or community? These are indeed the most common motivations for installing public art. Can't we delve deeper into the serious problems of the old times that are still preserved in the school and the nearby community, such as the spatial culture of the authoritarian era, or the distortion and obstruction of the urban environment caused by various quick-fix conveniences and development thinking? In fact, this direction is necessary but not easy to implement. How can the schoolteachers and students and related institutions nearby gradually deepen their understanding of the community and context of the regional environment? How to create the greatest and internalized lasting benefits in the rare opportunity of installing public art for the school's teachers and students and some institutions around?
Generally, we will promote or educate public art on campus through interactive learning courses with teachers, students and a few surrounding residents of our school. If public art is just aesthetic education, we can naturally design certain elements of public art into easy-to-operate arts and crafts courses and small public exhibitions and beautify them as public interaction. I believe that public interaction and public art installations in the broader sense are the same, or even more critical, they all include a continuous process of engagement that gradually and consciously creates a deep awareness of the environment and the possibility of changing the status quo.
The installation of public art on campus is an excellent opportunity to promote a comprehensive environmental education program, but it is bound to have considerable resistance to reaching out to the community, schoolteachers and students, and the internal administration system. How to resolve this kind of conservatism, fear of trouble, and even insistence on subjectivity, should be the main issue of public art on campus, which tends to be viewed conservatively and lightly. The role of the execution team is critical, starting with gaining recognition and engagement from the teachers.
Tailor-made project-based public art by local organizations
Taipei Mandarin Experimental Elementary School, a teaching building project co-constructed with the MRT Wanda Line station, invited the local organization Nanhai Art Studio to create a project-based public art that can create a substantial effect on the campus and this unique area.
The predecessor of the Nanhai Art team was the Nanhai Art Gallery, a non-profit art space revitalized from the idle principal's dormitory of the National Taipei University of Education. The gallery continues the spirit of the Huashan Art & Cultural Park, upholds the positioning of the art and culture space of the University of Education, leads students to engage in the community, and has supported the famous community festival “GuLing Street Books & Creative Bazaar” for more than a decade. It promotes independent publishing and cross-border reading exchange activities and is one of the representatives of the Guling Street area in the bid to host the 2016 World Design Capital of Taipei City. The Nanhai Art team continues to incorporate contemporary art curation, research, and actions into the local community and is deeply engaged in the southern part of the city, accumulating a deep understanding and recognition of the region.
Therefore, this public art project is based on years of foundation built in the community. At a time when various aspects of the southern part of the city are undergoing drastic transformation, it is expected that through public art, Taipei Mandarin Experimental Elementary School, which is already a star school, will be able to change the remnants of the original authoritarian structure, and the relative isolation and solemnity of the southern city community, which is full of governmental organizations. The hardware of public art will inevitably fail to fulfill this function, and the usual short-term public interaction will likewise fail to generate sustained energy.
Thus, the focus of public art is first shifted to the discussion of the unique history and culture of the region, structural issues of the public environment, as well as the possibility of change in the region, etc. This is precisely what the Nanhai Art team has always focused on and what they are most capable of making contributions.
An excellent opportunity for Taipei Mandarin Experimental Elementary School to explore changes inside and outside the school.
Taipei Mandarin Experimental Elementary School is situated in southern Taipei, an area with the richest cultural and natural heritage. Although there are cultural assets and museum clusters of different government ministries in this region, it has been observed over the years that there is not much inter-museum cooperation, and there is a lack of dialogue between the museums and the living environment of the community outside the museums.
This area is also adjacent to the Bo'ai Special Zone, where you can find central government agencies, public dormitories from various eras, schools at all levels, etc. Most of them are enclosed by high walls and green hedges, allowing only specific individuals to enter. In addition, due to the prime location, there are a large number of dilapidated and empty houses, car parks, and vacant land waiting for urban renewal. Coupled with the already constructed unapproachable high-rise luxury houses, hard-to-stay landscape facilities, and disconnected sidewalks, the neighborhood outside the wall appears even more isolated and fragmented.
In this mishmash of old and new, the construction of the MRT Wanda line crosses this area, driving the reconstruction of the Nanmen Market, a new co-construction building for the Taipei Mandarin Experimental Elementary School, and the development of a public urban renewal project at Quanzhou Street intersection. At one time, the rich and diverse life memories in southern Taipei, natural and humanistic landscapes, and the microcosm of history that can represent the modern development of Taipei, but now seem fragile. At this crucial moment of change in the southern part of the city, isn’t it also an excellent educational opportunity for the experimental elementary school to help its students explore the community/social changes that are so close to their hearts?
Multiple meanings of crossing the campus and the larger community
Mandarin Experimental Elementary School is located at the South Gate of the old Taipei city. If the city was the political and economic center of Taiwan at the time, then the South Gate, from the Japanese colonial period to the post-war era, has always been the “command center” for official cultural and educational policies and an experimental base for the promotion of language education policies. The South Gate is also the earliest cultural and educational area, the origin of the southern area of Taipei, and still boasts most museums and social education institutions in Taipei. These resources are closely related to the history of Taipei Mandarin Experimental Elementary School, and they are community learning resources that students can access just by stepping out of the school and crossing the street.
This project is named “Diverse Ecological Theater Crossing Campus and Big Community - Huayu Stage, Nanmen Co-Learning Project”. First, through the concise and powerful word “crossing”, we grasp the interactions between the public art project, Mandarin Experimental Elementary School, and the community in the southern Taipei. Through the multiple definitions of “crossings”, we reflect on how Mandarin Experimental Elementary School, as an important member of the gradually transforming South Gate area, can encourage more multi-level public engagement between preserving the old paradigm and initiating new modern changes.
The first layer of the crossing is the “Chunfeng Stand”, the ceremonial stand of the school center, plus the “Huayu Stage”. By employing a minimalist landscape design and flexible, multi-space weaving, it integrates multiple routes, opens up the fence wall, and connects the ceremonial stand in the center of the school, the existing wooden platforms, building corridors, classrooms, and the playground, integrating the fragmented spaces of the high-density campus, creating new public spaces on campus, and fostering new public relationships within the school.
The second layer of crossing extends the transformation to soften the image of the ceremonial stand to engage in a dialogue with the experimental elementary school as a teaching paradigm, and the historic national-level institutions at the South Gate. Crossing the region involves experiencing the shifts in power and cultural paradigms across different eras. By researching and compiling multiple maps of the natural and cultural landscapes of the southern part of the city, we can understand, comprehend, and think holistically about these elements together.
The third layer of crossing is through the “Nanmen Co-Learning Project”, transcending the boundaries of the school wall and the broader community, mobilizing multiple partnerships between teachers, parents, students, and community staff inside and outside the school to create a community co-learning network.
“Huayu Stage” and “Nanmen Co-Learning Project”
The main content of this project includes: the hardware of the plan comprises the school’s “Chunfeng Stand” plus the work “Huayu Stage,” which symbolizes the evolving area around Taipei’s South Gate. The software “Nanmen Co-Learning Project” starts with a public art teaching plan for grades 3 to 6, followed by 9 sessions of lectures for teachers, 4 work camps of landscape creation (12 days in total), an 8-week experimental workshop on campus space transformation, and a 3-week in-school achievement presentation.
Before the “Huayu Stage” is established, the project is to organize an artist team and school representatives to jointly initiate a 6-month public art teaching plan for grades 3 to 6. By taking the art courses, students are gradually engaged in various life scenarios inside and outside the experimental elementary school, practicing the awareness of individual perception, learning to read and express the aesthetic experiences co-created by artworks, participants, and daily environments, and exploring the interactive relationships between people, others, and the environment in public spaces. Therefore, the overall project structure and actions are closely aligned with the experimental elementary school's current situation. It further delineates the spaces of “body perception of teacher and student”, “Chunfeng Stand + Huayu Stage,” “school public spaces,” and “community environment in southern Taipei,” and lays out plans for the detailed content of subsequent hardware and software projects.
The hardware and software plans are complementary and reinforcing each other, spreading from within the school to the outside community, and connecting the school with surrounding community resources. The “Huayu Stage” at the school center integrates with the campus environment transformation, allowing teachers and students to see and directly perceive changes through space usage. The software project takes a relatively longer period to operate, and its influence is gradual. By combining the ceremonial stand with the hardware renovation actions of “Huayu Stage,” the concept and core spirit of the plan can be highlighted from the outset.
The “Huayu Stage,” created by Mr. Jenh-Wang Ho, plays on the homophone for “speech” in Chinese, symbolizing the spatial transformation of the ceremonial stand, showcasing the shift in the “right to speak” from discipline to the enlightening perspective of “inspirational education”. The proposal of the “Huayu Stage” was developed through extensive discussions with teachers and students to reach a consensus. Before its official construction during the summer break, a “Campus Space Transformation & Creation Workshop” was held, where Mr. Ho led 6-grade students to share campus experiences and renovation ideas. The cozy seats under the trees on the west side reflect the students' creativity, and cat holes were carefully kept on both sides to accommodate the school cat, Huahua.
After the completion of the “Huayu Stage”, non-verbal physical interaction improvisations were arranged, and flash-mob performances were held during break times, taking everyone from classrooms and semi-outdoor corridors to the “Huayu Stage”, guiding students to observe and adapt to the new public space. The “Open the Walls, From Corridors to Playgrounds” experimental workshop was also launched concurrently with the campus changes brought by the “Huayu Stage”. While the public art teaching plans were still being developed, there was an opportunity to incorporate them into 2-class, 8-week senior art courses. This initiative, centered around teachers and students, marked the beginning of the first wave of public dialogue about campus space and art.
Additionally, 9 teacher empowerment seminars were arranged, corresponding to the school's curriculum themes and introducing forward-looking topics. 3 “Landscape Creation Workshops in Southern Taipei,” were held in the form of themed camps of sound, puppetry, and animation on the weekends. Experts from various fields, teachers, students, parents, and community professionals collaborated to lead students out of the classroom to explore the rich natural and cultural landscapes of southern Taipei, engaging in collective creation and connecting cross-school and cross-community learning networks. This extracurricular action also brought diverse community themes and professional resources into the school as supportive partners.
Finally, the exhibition, postponed for one semester due to the epidemic, was transformed into an exhibition where students could come and play any time after class, combining the results of the project with the experience and exploration of the campus environment under the title of “ABC Mission with My Animal Classmates”. A piece of game paper was given to students, and they could draw and fold paper models of the campus, encouraging students to boldly realize their imaginations of space from the perspective of animals and campus life.
Conclusion
Public art on campus typically does not involve extensive budgets or large-scale projects. The public art hardware created with just 1% of the budget allocated for public infrastructure has a direct impact on the campus or surrounding environment, but this impact is minimal compared to the influence of buildings constructed with a hundred times that budget. However, the unique energies brought by public art on campus, including long-term mobilization of knowledge productivity, are incomparable to other public art. Through comprehensive curatorial efforts, public art on campus can create expanded effects in both space and time.
The execution team for public art, or more accurately, the long-term research, planning, and curatorial team, in this case study, is the Nanhai Art Studio. By integrating long-standing local issues into their observations of the daily life at the experimental elementary school, they have brought together professionals from different fields, community partners, and school teachers and students to learn from each other and collaborate on research and development in all phases of the software and hardware projects, in an attempt to deepen the impact of public art through a longer project period, which has continued to be well received. For example, the project exhibitions and interactive experiences with teachers and students provided references for the planning of an exploration-based curriculum at the experimental elementary school. The sound workshop facilitated the development and award-winning recognition of the neighboring Botanical Garden and natural sciences curriculum, while the GuLing Street Books & Creative Bazaar in the community became an experimental field supporting the school’s teaching action research.
The public art teaching plan, after more than a year of development by the team of art teachers, has become an official school curriculum titled “Power of Aesthetics”. This curriculum will continue to promote dialogue and interaction between the schoolteachers and students, and the community of Southern Taipei. The curriculum design has also received consecutive awards. As the primary practitioners of the broad cultural transformation of campus spaces, the teachers and students at the school are expected to embody the tangible effects of public art in real environments through successive courses. At this point, readers should understand that campus public art can accumulate through long-term participation, connection, and interaction, gradually changing outdated habits that were unconsciously accepted. The scope of its impact is beyond imagination.
Caption:
- Huayu Stage
- After-class flash mob at “Huayu Stage” with physical improv
- “Urban Ecology & Sound Workshop” visits botanical garden professionals
- Hugging trees and leaning on railings, listening to community sounds at “Huayu Stage”
- Project exhibition, touring the campus with animal transfer students
- “Cultural Heritage & Animation Workshop” visits MRT construction site