2022 Taiwan Lantern Festival in Kaohsiung
To gather the belief of the whole city with an event of light, and promote the aesthetic movement of light and shadow at night
After 20 years, the Taiwan Lantern Festival will be held again in Kaohsiung in 2022. It will be presented at two venues, Love River Bay and Weiwuying for the first time in history. More than 100 works and hundreds of programs will be displayed, presenting a novel and creative feast of light for people celebrating the New Year of the Tiger.
Starting from the Love River, which runs through the city, we built the whole Love River into the largest main lantern in history. Uno Lai, the most influential lighting designer and lighting poet in Asia, was invited to connect 6 bridges across the Love River to create water lighting stretching for 7 kilometers, and then connect with Kaohsiung Music Center located at the river mouth, turning Love River into a stage for urban lighting exhibition. The lighting works by the art team located between Jhenai Road and Pier-2 Art Center have strong Taiwanese characteristics, childlike sound and light interaction, and huge shapes. The colorful light and shadow projected on the mottled warehouse wall echoes Kaohsiung's special harbor, which makes it even more distinctive.
Cross Great Harbor Bridge, works of the 2021 Kaohsiung International Container Arts Festival: Van Buren Supernova are exhibited at the 9th storage yard of Penglai Commercial Port area. The artist transforms the container into stars on the sea, reversing the hard textile of the container and liberating the public's imagination of "light". Located in the century-old Railway Park, the "Illuminate Hamasen" is made of more than 20,000 meters of LED light bars, which not only reproduces the graceful arc of the track, but also connects the history with the landscape. It is the most important main light with the century-old historical significance of Kaohsiung.
Finally, we took the MRT Orange Line to Weiwuying, where we could see a vast forest. In response to the site's history as an indigenous hunting ground thousands of years ago, the Austronesian Light Zone has been organized. Nine groups of Austronesian artists have been invited to work on the site, combining Austronesian material with the rich ecology of the park. In addition, artists from home and abroad are invited to make works respectful of nature and in combination with the environment of Weiwuying so as to turn Weiwuying into a forest of arts with light.
In addition to the carefully selected and arranged Lantern Festival works, we are also presenting the first ever performance of Maritime Glow, a musical featuring light show and Taiwanese opera. The domestic troupe will jointly perform outdoor theater at Weiwuying to tell the story of Taiwan Island. In addition, we will also launch the Kaohsiung Spring Arts Festival Environmental Dance at the outdoor venue of Kaohsiung Music Center, inviting the local dance troupe to perform in the light environment, allowing the audience to experience the light show and the dance. The wonderful performance will definitely turn your imagination to the Lantern Festival!
This Spring Festival, we welcome you to come to Kaohsiung, the city with the most pleasant climate in Taiwan, to enjoy the lanterns and experience the charm of combining lighting art and environment. See you then!
