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Youth-Led Collaborative Curation: Connecting with the Land at the Tainan City Museum

2025/01/23
閱讀數 : 66

Author: Hsieh, Shih-yuan(Associate Professor, Department of History, National Cheng Kung University)


Tainan, home to Taiwan's earliest developed city, holds a unique position with over 400 years of historical significance and cultural depth. The Tainan City Museum (referred to as "South Museum") reopened in December 2023, presenting not only the "Our Story" narrative in its permanent exhibition but also hosting special exhibitions to spark discussions on new topics. These exhibitions explore the past, present, and future of Tainan’s culture and daily life. After extensive consultations, the museum has developed a thematic framework for its special exhibitions: the "Special Life Stories" series delves into the multifaceted dimensions of Tainan’s way of life, focusing on human-centered experiences; the "Viewing the World" series examines Tainan’s connections with the global community and encounters with other cultures; the "Local Histories" series investigates the interactions and operational mechanisms of local societies; and finally, the "Future Vision" series addresses contemporary issues such as cultural preservation and creative cultural initiatives, reflecting aspirations and visions for the future.

 

The entrance imagery of the Special Life Stories series exhibition Grocery Stores.

 

Opening Special Exhibition: Grocery Stores

The South Museum marked its reopening with the "Special Life Stories" series exhibition titled Grocery Stores (exhibition period: December 22, 2023 – June 2, 2024). Centered on grocery stores, the exhibition explores topics such as "The Evolution of the Old Grocery Stores," "Merchandise Featuring Tainan," "Be Your Own CEO," and "Trading in Local Memories." By focusing on everyday life, the exhibition aims to challenge preconceived notions of grocery stores as outdated relics, reimagining them instead as the key gateways to understanding people and places.

The exhibition explores how these self-managed retail stores, offering a diverse array of products, catered the varied shopping needs of different groups while serving as crucial hubs for the exchange of local information. Each grocery store has its unique characteristics, sheding lights on how globalization impacts the local economy and how local products adapt flexibly within grocery store networks.

Additionally, the exhibition highlights the significant role of women as operators of these stores. Many female proprietors are not only self-reliant business owners but also manage their role as mothers and spouses. Through the lens of grocery stores, visitors can observe how these women skillfully navigate and balance their dual identities.

 

 

The exhibition highlights the work experiences and role transitions of female proprietors.

 

Grocery stores, as grassroots commercial mechanisms still present across Tainan, serve as an ideal theme for this special exhibition, offering a holistic perspective on the city’s social diversity. More importantly, the exhibition fosters collaboration among citizen from all walks of life to its creation. From the early stages of the museum's transformation, South Museum embraced a participatory approach. Starting in 2020, volunteers and students were invited to participate in an investigation of grocery stores, eventually engaging students from over ten schools across Tainan. These young participants explored grocery stores in all 37 administrative districts of the city. Through hands-on curatorial workshops, the public’s collaborative efforts were integrated into the exhibition, resulting in an experience built in partnership with the community. For Tainan’s younger generation, this investigation became an opportunity to rediscover their neighborhood grocery stores, prompting reflection on their relationship with the land and their identity within Tainan. Under the keen observations and records of these young participants, the cultural charm of Tainan was imbued with fresh, contemporary perspectives.

 

 

A glimpse of the Grocery Stores special exhibition.

 

Building and Expanding Collaborative Mechanisms

Collaboration and co-creation are foundational to South Museum’s curatorial methodology. During its period of closure for renovations, the museum developed two key mechanisms to institutionalize the spirit of collaboration: "South Museum Investigators" and "Guest Curators." Established in 2021, the "South Museum Investigators" initiative engaged volunteers, high school students, and university students in thematic explorations facilitated by museum-led courses. Participants employed small, elegantly crafted display boxes as a medium to co-create exhibitions on topics ranging from the museum’s collections and grocery stores to educational history and Indigenous cultures. These micro-exhibitions have been showcased on platforms such as high schools, universities, museum festivals, and community exhibitions. The previously mentioned Grocery Stores special exhibition is also a direct result of the collaborative efforts of South Museum Investigators.

 

 

South Museum Investigators share their research findings through micro-exhibition boxes.

 

If "constructing history" is a process of negotiation, dialogue, and shared envisioning of the future, the South Museum Investigators program represents a crucial collaborative mechanism. It facilitates the construction of multicultural narratives, fosters public participation, embraces open interpretations, and drives the democratization of history. Simultaneously, it strengthens participants' connections to the society and relationships to the land.

 

 

Students from National Yujing Senior Vocational School of Technology and Commerce, as South Museum Investigators, explore their homeland in the foothills from various perspectives.

 

The "Guest Curators" initiative is another significant effort to leverage Tainan’s rich intellectual and cultural resources. Tainan is home to many scholars and independent experts who have conducted extensive research across diverse cultural domains. Through this program, South Museum invites experts from various fields to translate their specialized research into accessible and engaging presentations for the public. In 2022, South Museum invited historian and cultural researcher Zhang Yun-shu as its first Guest Curator. Zhang curated a micro-exhibition titled "Tainan Art: Private Cabinets in Local Inns" focused on craftsmanship. The exhibition was hosted across six local inns, illustrating the daily lives and cultural heritage of Tainan’s people through intimate and relatable narratives.

 

 

In Tainan Art: Private Cabinets in Local Inns, local innkeepers take on the role of curators to share Tainan’s unique cultural knowledge.

 

During the curatorial process, experts contribute their professional perspectives by creating exhibition scripts, while the museum shapes diverse viewpoints through its exhibitions. In this way, the "Guest Curators" initiative establishes a platform for collaborative expression, allowing external historical research communities to actively participate in curatorial endeavors. Consequently, the museum becomes an open stage for enriching the understanding of Tainan’s history from multiple perspectives.

The Vision of South Museum

In 2024, as Tainan marks its 400th anniversary, the vision for this cultural capital extends beyond mere preservation or revival of traditions. Instead, it seeks to foster social dialogue rooted in its rich historical and cultural heritage, shaping the city’s unique cultural identity, strengthening residents' sense of belonging, and collectively exploring the future of the city. For the reopened South Museum, the challenge is to leverage museum practices to realize this urban vision. This involves the effective application of museum technologies, including collection management, research, exhibition design, and educational programming, as well as seamless coordination between the museum's front-of-house and behind-the-scenes operations.

Moreover, South Museum places significant emphasis on the participatory values of collaboration and dialogue, aligning with the contemporary vision of museums as platforms for social communication. The museum underscores that everyone is an integral part of preserving the history and culture of this ancient capital, and that diverse communities are both the agents of historical activities in the past and the architects of contemporary historical narratives. By fostering connections between the past and the present and emphasizing human agency, South Museum aims to collaboratively advance Tainan’s cultural vision. Underpinned by a solid foundation of museum techniques, the institution aspires to become a museum capable of social action and issue-driven discourse, playing a pivotal role in the city’s cultural and societal development.

❚ English Editor: Cheung, Billy Chi-Yiu (M.A., Graduate Institute of Museum Studies, TNUA)


資訊來源

臺南市立博物館官網


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