Following the opening of the New Taipei City Art Museum (NTCAM) last week with interdisciplinary music performances, "Mambo Vibes", the public art promotional event, will continue this weekend on the 22nd and 23rd April, with the debut of several new public artworks in the park and a series of promotional activities, inviting the public to the museum to experience the beauty and joy of public art through in-depth tours, mini-trips, real escape games, guided performances, as well as music concerts held inside a large-scale installation.

NTCAM is located on the reclaimed land of Yingge, where Yingge River and Dahan River converge. It covers over 10 hectares of outdoor park and ecological scenery along the riverbank and is adjacent to Yingge Civil Sports Center, the Water Recycling Center, and Dahan River Bike Trails. It’s an all-age recreation area combining art, ecology, sports and leisure. Therefore, during the preparation for its opening, the museum took local context and ecological care as its starting point, combined with the surrounding environment, ecology and humanistic landscape. As “a museum for all”, it aims to make an open, public and relatable art and cultural venue by including the park as one of the exhibition spaces and planning a variety of long-term installation works and art projects, sharing the beauty of art with everyone.

Unlike the standard public art, NTCAM hopes to think outside the box, inviting the audience to re-define and re-imagine what public art is. In this opening, four newly commissioned works will be unveiled to the public for the first time, including The Seed by 95-year-old artist Lee Tsai-Chien, a long-time resident of Jinshan, New Taipei City. The installation represents the artist's personal observations and life experiences in the area, with a simple and organic form that symbolizes the beginning of life and carries hope and blessings. In addition, Lee has generously donated another large-scale sculpture of his, Confrontation and Harmony, to the collection of NTCAM.

The works Color Forms and The Path of Island, located at the toilet of Creative Cluster, were collectively made by artists Chu Teh-Yi and Chou Tai-Chun, constructing a geographical imagination of Yingge through combining the way ancient maps scroll and contemporary travel experience of viewing maps on the internet. The use of mosaic cut-outs and color collages in the works shows the linear flow of people moving through the corridor and the subtle transformation of the land, creating a surreal space across the past and the present.

Another work among the newly commissioned is, Lend an Ear to the Land, made by artists Yannick Dauby, Tsai Wan-Shuen, Hsu Yen-Ting and Yang Yu-Chiao. Through field documentation and fictional narratives, the team translated the sound collected into a series of audio works that could function as a guided tour. These works include sounds from the riversides of Sanjiaoyong, the traditional industry of Yingge, oral history collected from the local elders, the folk songs of Nan-Ching Tribe, as well as the only surviving Hakka Eight-Tones (Ba-Yin) from the first commercial vinyl record in Taiwan, inviting the public to move and listen as they stroll through the seven scenes in the park, imagining, exploring and feeling the unique textures of Sanxia and Yingge through the sense of hearing.

In addition, NTCAM has commissioned artists Lin Shuen-Long, Wu Jian-Fu, Kung Wen-Yi, and Samuel Hsuan-Yu Shih to restore their public artworks, Pottery, Life with Ceramics, Pottery Making Process and Potters of the Magic Wand - 1804, installed in the Sanying Spatial Art District 14 years ago, inviting the public to come and see their new appearances.

To further promote the works in the park, NTCAM and the Yingge Ceramics Museum are jointly launching two series of activities, “Exploring the Art" and "Spring Tour in Yingge" from April to June, encouraging the public to appreciate the works in various ways, including in-depth tours, mini-trips, real escape games, and guided performances. There will also be the first music concert held inside the large installation, Pottery, bringing a new experience to the audience through the interdisciplinary performance. Registration for the events in May will open at 10am on 20th April, and for more information, please visit the event website or the website of NTCAM and its Facebook page.