Department of Cultural Affairs

The Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM) Children’s Art Education Center presents a new exhibition, Imagining a Park, inspired by the theme of “reimagining the park.” 

The exhibition brings together nine participating artists and groups: Jimmy Shih, Florence Yuk-ki Lee, Tsan-cheng Wu, Ming Baï Lab (Ming-chieh Lee and Baï Lee), Xiang Ni, Zi-yin Chen, Wan-jen Chen, Yu-chiao Yang, and Sheng-chien Hsiao. Visitors of all ages are invited to use art to look anew at familiar everyday spaces and discover fresh ways of imagining and experiencing the park.

Located on Zhongshan North Road next to Taipei Expo Park, TFAM stands just across the road from Yuanshan. Yuanshan Park (圓山公園), Taiwan’s first modern public park, opened in 1897, and the site preserves the important prehistoric Yuanshan Archaeological Site (圓山文化層遺址). It was also home to a zoo set up in 1915 and an amusement park that opened in 1938. Throughout its history, the area has been one of Taipei’s foremost venues for recreation, education, and entertainment. Rich in shared memories, it continues to evolve as a vibrant public gathering place.

The exhibition is based on preliminary research into the historical development of Yuanshan Park (圓山公園) and explores the many dimensions of parks in three thematic sections: Form and Perception (形狀與感知), Nature and Construction (自然與建構), and Public Space and Reimagination (公共性與再想像). The themes encourage visitors to reconsider their relationships with nature and one another, while using observation and participation to engage in an ongoing dialogue with history.

For a child, every visit to a park begins with quiet curiosity: the winding patterns of terrazzo pathways, the texture and sound of footsteps on paving stones, the discovery of a snail, the sight of an unusually shaped leaf. These seemingly ordinary yet vivid moments naturally capture their attention and become the starting point for questions and imaginings.

Greeting visitors at the exhibition entrance a work by Jimmy Shih that anthropomorphizes the familiar spherical yellow streetlamp. The upright light post has been transformed into a series of expressive poses that imbue an everyday object with new life and spatial meaning. 

Zi-yin Chen’s installation draws inspiration from a seesaw, tilting as the light changes through the day and thereby inviting viewers to consider whether light itself has weight while heightening their awareness of the rhythms of urban life and the subtle ways light shapes both body and emotion. 

Inspired by Yuanshan Park’s (圓山公園) history, Xiang Ni’s After a Long Time Ago invites visitors to participate in an interactive experience that reimagines familiar park features such as statue pedestals, monuments, and tree trunks in unexpected and playful ways.

The exhibition also features a dedicated creative space where, after exploring the exhibition, visitors are encouraged to imagine, draw, and build their own ideal park. This participatory area is a response to the Taipei Fine Arts Museum’s ongoing expansion project at the Taipei Expo Park Meishu Area (花博公園美術園區). While the new museum building will be constructed underground, the ground level will become an open public park, creating a cultural green corridor for the northern Taipei metropolitan area in the future.

▍ Imagining a Park

Dates｜Saturday, March 28–Sunday, August 30 

Venue｜Taipei Fine Arts Museum Basement Level

Children’s Art Education Center