Catch the beauty of Taiwanese paper craft at Bangkok exhibition

The Taipei Economics & Culture Office in Thailand opened its Taiwan Eco-Island Paper Art Exchange Exhibition on Tuesday at the university.

Attendees at the opening ceremony got to see the skillful transformation of pieces of paper into all manner of three-dimensional sculptures.

They were also treated to live demonstrations and instructions by artist Hsin-Fu Hung on the basics of paper folding.

Hsiu-Mei Hsueh, deputy representative of the Taipei Economic & Cultural Office, said both paper art and origami are traditional crafts of Taiwan.

Folding paper into a plane, a frog, or even a crane is an interesting memory for almost every child in Taiwan, she pointed out.

Hsueh said she was glad to see this cultural collaboration between Taiwan and Thailand.

In the exhibition, two artists – Hsin-Fu Hung and Ching-Yao Liang – incorporate elements from Taiwan’s ecosystems and cultural/social milieu into their artworks.

Taiwan is an eco-island rich in biodiversity while its paper art mirrors both the natural environment and its cultural social background.

It has developed its own particular style “distinct from traditional Chinese paper art” and has “transcended the boundaries” of Japanese origami.

For the exhibition, Hung created ten large paper animal busts, including those of the Formosan buffalo, Formosan sika deer and the Taiwanese black bear.

Meanwhile, young artist Ching-Yao Liang introduced three-dimensional paper artwork that depict various objects, including puzzle game cards and a paper replica of the Alishan forest train.

One unusual feature of Liang’s works is that through his skillful utilisation of precise mathematical calculations and particular characteristics of paper in addition to ingenious designs, his art pieces often incorporate elements of manoeuvrability and interactivity so everyone can actually have fun playing with them.

Catch the exhibition until August 31 at Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University’s Chudharatanabhorn building.