Interviewee｜Yen-Ju Yu (Former Section Chief, Cultural Affairs Bureau, Tainan City Government)
Interviewer｜Lu-Fang Tam
Editor｜Chen-Yi Hsieh
Interview Date｜February 17, 2023
Located in Jiali District, Tainan, the Soulangh Cultural Park derives its name from the Taiwanese indigenous Siraya settlement known as the “Soulangh.” The main site of the park was originally Taiwan’s first modern sugar refinery established by Meiji Sugar Manufacturing Co., Ltd. in 1906 – the Soulangh Sugar Refinery, later renamed the Jiali Sugar Factory. Fourteen warehouses from the original factory complex remain today. When the Preparatory Office of Soulangh Cultural Park was founded in 2003, it began restoring and transforming these abandoned warehouses, leading to the official opening of the park in 2005.
Established in 2013, the Soulangh International Art Village has welcomed both local and international artists for residency exchanges and has actively fostered close partnerships with artist-in-residence organizations abroad. With more than a decade of hosting experience, it has grown into one of the most important cultural exchange hubs in southern Taiwan. Unlike other publicly operated or public–private art villages, the Soulangh International Art Village adopts a distinctive operational model: the institution hires external professional curators (now referred to as “consultants”) to conduct research and curate exhibitions for the village. For example, Associate Professor Ming-Huei Chen of the Institute of Creative Industries Design at National Cheng Kung University has served repeatedly as curator for the village’s exhibitions and events. Over the years, the team has also gradually built its own internal database based on accumulated experience. In this interview, Yen-Ju Yu, former Section Chief of the Cultural Affairs Bureau of Tainan City Government, discusses the strategic management behind the Soulangh International Art Village and shares the outcomes of its exchange programs to date, including reflections from curators and artists on the significance of running an art village.
Note: The operational planning of the Soulangh International Art Village is currently overseen by Section Chief Chih-Ming Chen of the Cultural Park Management Division.
Culturally Adaptive Management of the Park System
Under the Cultural Affairs Bureau of the Tainan City Government, the Cultural Park Management Division is responsible for overseeing four cultural parks: in addition to the Soulangh Cultural Park, it manages the Shuijiaoshe Cultural Park in the South District, the Tsung-Yeh Arts and Cultural Center in the Madou District, and, beginning in 2024, the newly incorporated Erkong Military Dependents’ Village in the Rende District. Yu explains: “Each of these three earlier parks developed within a distinct geographical and historical context, which naturally led to different directions and possibilities for development.” The Shuijiaoshe Cultural Park, originally an Air Force military dependents’ village, has become a platform for preserving, revitalizing, and promoting the cultural heritage of Tainan’s military dependents’ communities after its restoration. The Tsung-Yeh Arts and Cultural Center was transformed from the former Tsung-Yeh Sugar Factory and head office of Meiji Sugar Manufacturing Co., Ltd. into a window for promoting sugar industry culture (and will shift toward promoting craft arts in 2025). The park also hosts the Tsung-Yeh Artist Village, which provides residency spaces for domestic and international artists (and will begin emphasizing the promotion of sugar industry culture starting in 2025). First held in 2019, the Madou Sugar Industry Art Triennial demonstrated the region’s capacity and potential for organizing large-scale artistic initiatives. By 2022, the festival evolved into the Mattauw Earth Triennial, themed “One Thousand Names of Zeng-wen River.” Built upon three years of field research, the festival presented the cultural richness of the Zengwen River basin.
Meanwhile, the Soulangh Cultural Park is built upon three core units: the Soulangh International Art Village, Soulangh Children’s Library, and Soulangh Children’s Museum of Art. Together, these units emphasize cultivating children’s arts and cultural education in southern Taiwan while fostering international artistic exchange. However, managing such a wide range of responsibilities requires careful planning, especially when it comes to staff allocation. Yu notes: “Although each unit has its own dedicated staff, when hosting visiting artists, whether local or international, five to six of the approximately eight staff members at the park will also take on support roles. This includes colleagues from general affairs and festival culture divisions. The main reason is simply that we host many artists, and there are numerous matters related to international exchange.”
Because all three parks are located at a distance from the urban center, reception staff must be attentive to every detail. Even before an artist arrives, the team must coordinate with them to confirm all necessary information. Assistance is provided for processes ranging from airport arrival and immigration to transportation to the park. Once the artists are on site, the team handles arrangements for daily living, such as food, housing, and transportation as well as providing support for their creative projects. They prepare bilingual (Chinese–English) guides to the Jiali area, including historical and cultural information and practical details about nearby shops for daily needs.
“When an artist begins conceptualizing their project, we also initiate discussions based on their creative background, such as the themes or formats they might be interested in,” Yu says. Each year, the staff plan tailored cultural tours around Tainan based on the interests and artistic tendencies of the residency artists. Some artists may prefer historic sites and temples, while others may be more drawn to specific cultural landscapes. “In addition to introducing them to local history and culture, we also take them to visit local galleries and arts spaces. We bring them to the Cultural Heritage Building Materials Bank across from the Soulangh Cultural Park to explore potential materials for their projects. During these outings, staff and artists talk, exchange ideas, and get to know one another. Such interactions help us better understand the artists’ needs and identify workable solutions. We also hold dedicated art exchange sessions to further deepen mutual understanding.”
Turning Challenges into Advantages
For the staff members who serve as residency liaisons, their role often extends to accompanying and supporting the artists throughout their stay. Although the Soulangh Artist Village provides bicycles for artists to travel between the park and Jiali’s town center, staff members are always willing to drive them to places that may be difficult to reach by bike or public transportation. If communication barriers arise, whether due to language issues or unfamiliarity with local contexts, they proactively offer assistance. While Taipei is known for its convenient public transit and ease of accessing information, Tainan’s distinctive cultural character provides artists with a constant source of creative inspiration. “Whether it’s the North Gate area, the plains indigenous culture, the rituals of the incense procession, or the traditional crafts seen in temples, such as cut-and-paste ornamentation or Koji pottery, artists find all of these elements fascinating. They reflect the cultural texture of Tainan, and many artists even interact directly with local residents in their creative process.”
Although the park is located far from the city center, Yu sees strong potential in transforming this seeming disadvantage into a unique strength. One key example lies in the integration of local religious culture into the park’s programming. The team has even taken the initiative to bring troupes of traditional ritual performance known as “yizhen (藝陣)” into the park, fostering meaningful connections among the park, resident artists, and the local community. “The Tainan Yizhen Exhibition has long explored how to build exchanges with local temples. A few years ago we participated in the Saigang Koah-hiun incense-questing pilgrimage, and in 2023 we took part in the Soulangh Xiang Festival. That year, we invited Jiali Jintang Temple, and for the first time in a century, the temple’s Centipede Formation performed by 108 people paraded into the park to offer blessings.” Following local custom, the park prepared an incense table and erected a temporary palace for the Ong Yah deities, demonstrating its sincerity and respect for local tradition. “These experiences have become an invaluable source of nourishment for us. When we later take artists to visit temples, we can provide far deeper explanations of temple culture.”
In addition, during the pandemic the park began experimenting with 360-degree virtual exhibitions, which later evolved into a regular method of exhibition documentation (discontinued in 2025 after pandemic restrictions eased). This approach allowed audiences unable to visit in person to experience exhibitions online, while also prompting the institution to begin early-stage database development. Visuals, audio, and the overall spatial atmosphere of each exhibition could be preserved more comprehensively. “Although we publish an annual report every year, the information is entirely on paper. In recent years, we’ve begun storing artworks, videos, texts, and other materials from each exhibition. With four or five virtual exhibitions created annually, we will accumulate a substantial volume of information in the next decade.” Thanks to the efforts of the staff, exhibition-related materials from the past ten years have also been excavated and reorganized. Although the current documentation still relies on simple Excel spreadsheets, this growing archive will eventually form the foundational structure for a future web-based system. As the database expands, and if funding becomes available, the team hopes to gradually build it into a fully developed digital archive.
The Convergence and Connections of Relationship Networks
As an international artist-in-residence institution, fostering global exchanges and connections is essential. Yet the Soulangh Artist Village has also developed a strong model of horizontal community building. In addition to expanding partnerships with artist-in-residence organizations abroad each year, the village has invested heavily in strengthening domestic networks. Whether the focus is artistic imagination or the promotion of local history and cultural heritage, the park regularly engages in extensive discussions with university faculty, experts, and scholars. “We have collaborated with Professor Ming-Huei Chen of National Cheng Kung University and Professor Jow-Jiun Gong of Tainan National University of the Arts for many years. They have curated and conducted research for multiple projects at the park, and their students are often brought in to encounter the outcomes and even participate in the projects themselves. Artist-in-residence turned educator Chun-Yuan Hung, now teaching at National Chung Hsing University, once asked whether it would be possible for his students to intern or engage in collaborative teaching at Soulangh. Of course, I warmly welcomed the idea.” The park also exchanges information with local galleries in Tainan. Absolute Space for the Arts, another artist-in-residence venue, organizes the annual “Coming to My Place” talk series, which further expands opportunities for dialogue and connection.
When asked how the village continues to nurture the potential of its residency artists, Yu cites numerous examples showing how creators who began at Soulangh have carried their work across borders through these relationship networks. Many Taiwanese artists originally based in northern Taiwan or overseas have seen the outcomes of their residency at Soulangh gain visibility, leading to invitations from other festivals or institutions. For example, artists such as Ya-Chu Kang and Yu-Jung Chen later collaborated with the Earth Triennial, while Yu-Cheng Hsieh participated in the Yuejin Lantern Festival. Beyond artist residencies, the park must also manage community expectations, particularly in relation to family-friendly programming and cultural education. When asked whether this work feels burdensome, Yu responds: “In truth, the local residents and children are both our nourishment and audience. When appropriate, an artist’s work may even be extended into the Soulangh Children’s Museum of Art. Japanese artist Yuya Suzuki, for example, expanded his original residency project into a year-long permanent exhibition, Phantoms Agora, at the museum, invited by Professor Ma-Li Wu. After completing her residency, Italian paper-cut artist Linda Toigo joined the “Kau-Puê, Mutual Companionship in Near Future” exhibition at the 2017 Soulangh International Contemporary Art Festival, and we recently invited her back to create the Children’s Museum’s annual special exhibition, “A Journey To….” I think this kind of clustering increases community among artists and strengthens the effects of aggregation.”
As artists evolve, they inevitably move on to different phases in different places. Yet at various points in their careers, they return to collaborate with Soulangh again, creating a longer, more sustained relationship with Tainan. Many scholars often ask: What should Soulangh focus on in the next decade? Yu is clear about where the potential lies: “These networks allow people to remain closely connected, making collaboration more dynamic. In essence, it’s about becoming ‘more international by becoming more local.’ That is why we continue to invest in the local foundation, and will keep doing so.”
This article is based on an interview conducted in February 2023. The content reflects the circumstances during Yu’s previous tenure as a section chief of the Cultural Affairs Bureau, Tainan City Government. For the most up-to-date information regarding the Soulangh Artist Village, please refer to news and announcements from the Cultural Affairs Bureau, Tainan City Government.