National Taiwan Museum has played a significant role in the enlightenment of modern knowledge in Taiwan. The founding of this museum can be traced back to the Meji Reformation in 1868, when Japan transformed itself for western modernization and capitalism. In the world scene, development in industrial production and colonial economy culminated in mid-nineteenth century materialized in Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations in 1851 or in Exposition Universelle des Produits de l’Industrie in 1855.
The fashion of world’s fair spread to other countries. After the Yoshima Seido Exposition in Tokyo, the concept of museum promoted in the exhibition became one of the goals of the new Japan Empire in pursuit of modernity. Production expositions became the means to promote and display industrial and agricultural production since the Japanese colonization of Taiwan in 1895. In celebration of the completion of the North-south Railway in 1908, Taiwan Governor-General’s Office (Sotokufu) held a series of events and expositions in order to showcase its colonial governance. The Museum of Bureau of Colonial Production (Shokusankyofu) (now Bo-ai Building of Ministry of Defense) was built on the site for Production Exposition and the Lottery Office building. The founding of the Society of Naturalists in Taiwan and its journal became the precedent of Taiwan Museum in promoting modern knowledge and rationalism. In 1915 the Bureau of Colonial Production moved to other locations and the building used for the Taiwan Governor-General’s Library, It unfortunately destroyed during the World War II.
The current building of Taiwan Museum was dedicated on April 18th, 1915, in honor of the Governor-General Kodama Gentaro and Chief Civilian Administrator Goto Shinpei. Designed by Nomura Ichiro and Araki Eiichi, the building replaced an existing Matzu Temple built 1888 in old town Taipei. In 1933 the Association of Taiwan Museum was founded and the Science of Taiwan magazine was published. After World War II, the museum was renamed Taiwan Provincial Museum. In 1998 the institutional affiliation of the museum moved under Commission of Cultural Affairs and became National Taiwan Museum. In 2005 the Ministry of Culture initiated a museum system project, using Taiwan Museum as center to connect and revitalizing the four historical sites in the old city of Taipei: National Taiwan Museum, Camphor Factory of Monopoly Bureau, Nihon Kangyo Bank, and the Railway Ministry.
The “Musemble” project further expands the network of museum system to include and inquire modern architecture of old town Taipei in order to gather sites of collective memories. Using the exhibition as departure point of Taiwan Museum System, it connects the valuable buildings expressive of modernity in the area in our efforts to formulate a cultural district of the capital city. The 100th year anniversary of the exhibition is a catalyst. Smart-phone app Dream Project further integrates collective memories and historical spaces in its construction of a virtual guide system of the Dream Museum City.
Harnessing the historical fragments to connect different time and space, a museum performs its dual functions of collecting and sharing. People collect their memories and material culture of their times and in turn share with others in their construction of a eternality that transcends space and time. This is what Michel Foucault called “heterotopia,” which exists somewhere between reality and fictional space. It is a representational space of modernity to provoke a dialectical reflection and to rediscover self. The purpose of the Exhibition of Centennial Anniversary is to connect the memories of museum and urban spaces in order to evoke the reflection on the subjectivity and modernity of the citizens.
I. The Statement: Dream as Mirage, Dream as Maze
II. The Exhibition: Back to the Future
1. Musemble City: Collective Memories and Dreams
2. Maze and Mirage: the Confusion of Modernity
III. Mazes and Memory Places
Maze 1: Utopia- an Incomplete Project
Maze 2: Modern Street- the Iron Cage of Commodity
Maze 3: Urban Nomad- Drift, Cultivation, and the Search of Self
Maze 4: Knowledge and Rationality- Disenchantment and Control
Maze 5: Symbols of Authority-Confusion of Historicism and Modernism
Maze 6: Industrial Production- Development and Plunder
When: 22 Dec 2015 – 4 Sep 2016 6:00-22:00
Where: National Taiwan Museum
Price: NT$ 30/15