Work> The Bold
(Design) an exhibition that turns New Taipei's boldness into space and story.
#Museum #NewMediaArt #Storytelling
Freedom Lies in Being Bold
The Bold looks at contemporary New Taipei City, exploring the soil of this city and the spirit of freedom and nonconformity it nurtures. These forces take many shapes and follow many methods, but they share one thing: small, concrete acts of strength that push against the rules of their time, their way of life, their culture, their institutions, and their identity.
If design is about the relationship between form and content, then the spirit of boldness is a kind of design too—every attempt, every exception, every act of resistance is a way of designing toward a better world. And this process can happen in the everyday lives of us all.
What defines New Taipei? It is a city with no typical way of life and no single collective face—and for that very reason, it can hold all those attempts, exceptions, and acts of resistance. Perhaps every longing for freedom can find its place here.
The exhibition is divided into two zones: The Practice of Bold and The Spirit of Bold. The Practice of Bold begins with four of New Taipei's geographic and cultural characteristics, showing how different environments nurture different forms of boldness through the actions of individuals. The Spirit of Bold uses stories to invite reflection on what boldness means.
The exhibition opens with a corridor. Its walls carry the traces of different eras, activities, and events—of all the people and things that have moved through this city. What the exhibition seeks to convey is exactly this quality of New Taipei: uneven, irregular, and varied, yet able to hold all things—in space, in sound, and in sight alike.
Boldness is both a state and an action. This zone sets out from a range of perspectives to explore the boldness nurtured within New Taipei's many contexts—practitioners who dare to think and speak up, who make New Taipei their home or their base, and who act on their convictions as a way of advocating from where they stand.
Each wall is an entry point, taking up rivers and sea and tradition, mountains and forests and nature, history and daily life, and the city and identity. Reading and reflecting along these themes may become the starting point for a breakthrough of one's own.
Where does boldness come from? This zone explores the spirit of boldness—to break the frame and become an exception to the world often invites opposition and rejection, yet it is also where freedom begins. And this kind of boldness is already present in the everyday life of this city.
At the center of the zone stand three LED columns paired with floor projection, encircling a raised platform. On them play three fables written for this exhibition, each speaking to a different spirit: the courage to differ, the courage to question, and the omnipresence of boldness itself.
Story 1: The Upside-Down Man
Bold was born and raised upside down, and for that he was pushed aside by those around him. One day he drew an upside-down rainbow, and his classmates grew curious about the way he saw the world—cyclists flying up into the sky, shooting stars bursting like fireworks. All the sights Bold saw became something singular in their eyes, and one by one they began to see the world upside down too. And Bold, in turn, came to embrace what made him different.
Story 2: The Legend of Bold Island
The people of Bold Island could once fly, but the gift slowly faded until it was only an old legend. A thousand years later, a child found the secret of flight in the paintings on a cave wall—yet the grown-ups paid no heed. Refusing to give up, the child returned to the cave in search of more clues. At last the child leapt bravely from a waterfall and, to their astonishment, grew the power to fly—coming to understand that curiosity and courage are the true source of flight.
Story 3: The Man Who Lived Ten Thousand Times
Bold has lived ten thousand times in the same city, each time dying comically in a different adventure, only to be reborn. Reborn once more, he wants to share his ten thousand adventures across the city through an exhibition—the mountains, rivers, and seas he has roamed, the many people he has met, the strange factories he has wandered into. All sorts of curious visitors arrive, among them the upside-down man and the one who can fly—and Bold finds himself looking forward to the adventures still to come.
The key visual is a wall built up from an array of printed matter and materials, echoing the many strands of consciousness that gather in New Taipei. Through tearing, layering, painting over, and scraping at wood, it renders the process by which these strands turn into force and shape the city as it is today.
This city has seen many fearless, untamed acts of art, and a steady outpouring of creative energy that breaks with convention. Though such intangible force can never be returned to the moment it happened, looking back, its traces remain in view—and every trace is a claim that someone once made.
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