Department of Cultural Affairs

The Songyanland Festival, the annual centerpiece of the Songshan Cultural and Creative Park, returns this year from November 8 to 17! 

This year’s theme, Follow the Water, envisions the park as a confluence connecting the history of water, people, the surrounding environment, and urban development. 

Over ten days, the festival will showcase five site-specific creations, art performances, and a core exhibition, blending environmental art, kinetic machinery, sound art, sculpture installations, and performing arts. These elements echo the park’s three guiding pillars—heritage, ecology, and humanity—unveiling its rich cultural layers, honoring its historical roots, and inspiring public awareness of land and water resource conservation. The festival paves the way for sustainable development through art and community engagement.

A Three-Year Curatorial Narrative—Connecting Songyan and the City

Since its inception in 2012, the Songyanland Festival has featured over 100 original works. Since 2019, the festival has expanded beyond indoor spaces, and in 2023 it adopted a three-year curatorial cycle, with each year used to highlight a different aspect of the park’s evolution. The current cycle will delve into the origin of the tobacco factory (2023), water channel networks (2024), and railway branches (2025). The festival will continue to use artistic interpretations to tell the story of Songshan Tobacco Factory’s transformation into the Songshan Cultural and Creative Park.

Discovering Urban Textures through Songshan Tobacco Factory’s Transformation

Songshan Tobacco Factory played a pivotal role in the development of Taipei’s eastern district and preserved traces of the city’s culture. 

Comparing the 1895 Taipei Topographic Map against the geography today, it can be seen that the area surrounding the factory was once farmland dotted with railways, ponds, rivers, and settlements. In 1937, the site was chosen by the Taiwan Governor-General Monopoly Bureau for its proximity to water, rail, and road infrastructure, making it ideal for the construction of the tobacco factory. 

The 1939 Liugong Irrigation Map highlights the connection between the Liugongzun Canal and Songyan. Drawing water from Xindian, the canal flows northward before splitting into branches running east and west. The western branch supplied water to Taihoku Imperial University (now National Taiwan University), while the eastern branch providing essential water to the Taiwan Provincial Monopoly Bureau’s Songshan Tobacco Factory (now the Songshan Cultural and Creative Park) and the Taipei Railway Workshop (now the Preparatory Office of National Railway Museum). 

In 2011, Songshan Tobacco Factory was repurposed as Songshan Cultural and Creative Park and was officially designated as Taipei’s “base for original creative works”. With the opening of the Taipei Dome, the area is steadily evolving toward its envisioned role as a cultural and sports hub.

The core exhibition explores four themes: Water and Land: The First Encounter, Water and Industrial Villages: Lives and Communities in Flux, Ecological Continuity: Water as Songyan’s Lifeblood, and Ecological Leap: A Sustainable Songyan Water System. Art installations, photography, and ecological exhibits are used to bring to light the crucial role of water in the development of the Songshan and Xinyi areas. Visitors are guided as they experience the story of water connecting past, present, and future.

 Co-Creating the Sound and Form of Songyan

Songshan Cultural and Creative Park hums with sounds that intertwine with its historic spaces. Sound artist Tsan-cheng Wu captures Songyan’s auditory memories in The Connections, a work that links the park’s spaces with the broader city. It reflects Songyan’s transformation alongside that of Taipei and connects industrial, daily, and urban soundscapes, while reinterpreting ecological and industrial shifts in relation to water.

Artist Kuen-lin Tsai, celebrated for his innovative use of building materials such as water pipes to craft immersive soundscapes, delves into themes of the environment, life, and land. His installation Undercurrent Whispers takes inspiration from the roads, former streams, and irrigation canals surrounding Songyan. By integrating underwater sounds recorded in the park’s ecological pond and suspending them within the artwork, the piece symbolizes the pivotal role Songyan plays and invites visitors to explore the connection between contemporary roads and historical waterways, while capturing the spatial and dynamic flow of irrigation channels.

Artistic Translations of Songyan’s Living History

Artist Shih-fu Yu excels at uncovering and interpreting stories connected to waterways and urban landscapes. His research has revealed overlooked details and hidden corners of the Songshan Cultural and Creative Park that inspired his kinetic installation titled The Story Here. This artwork uses shifting colors and forms to represent the industrial evolution and functional transformations of Songshan Tobacco Factory across different eras. Viewers are invited to experience these narratives while appreciating the dynamic interplay of wind, light, and shadow, showcasing the natural beauty of movement.

For the first time, the Songyanland Festival is collaborating with the performing arts group 9s’ Production to present a site-specific performance inspired by the 2022 restoration of the Boiler Room. Titled Boiler Guidance: Shadows of Tobacco, this performance combines close-up magic with the striking visual elements of circus arts. Viewers are immersed in Songyan’s historical narratives as the story of this heritage site is vividly brought to life to life through a mesmerizing fusion of acrobatics and magic.

Taipei’s First Environmental Art “Water Dress” Debuts at Songyan

The 2024 Songyanland Festival—Follow the Water series includes a collaboration with Taipei Xinyi Community College to launch the Xinyi District Water & Heritage Walking Tour. The Taipei Public Library mobile library will make its first-ever pop-up appearance at the park, while Eslite Spectrum Songyan will host a thematic book fair and an Eslite Forum featuring celebrity salons. 

These activities are being held not only to celebrate the 140th anniversary of Taipei’s founding, but also to offer the public a chance to engage with Songyan’s historical landmarks and natural ecological spaces through artistic performances and exhibitions. Participants will have the opportunity to explore the transformation of Songshan Tobacco Factory and uncover its hidden history in Taipei’s eastern district, with a focus on sustainability and a deeper understanding of the importance of cultural heritage preservation.