Helen's Blog 2

Day 4 in Taiwan started with a bus ride outside Taipei to Pinglin Cultural Landscape. The green mountains interspersed with small tea farms created a stunning view. Seeing the mountains in Asia almost feels like looking at those landscape paintings come to life. I had the same impression outside Beijing visiting the Great Wall and it really makes me wonder what makes the mountains here have such a distinct shape compared to the Americas or Europe. I would love to know the geological reason. 











After our short hike we traveled into this small but quaint old town and had some delicious tea and tea-flavored food. After we walked around the town we went to the tea museum. Beyond learning a bit more about the processes of making tea and its place in traditional Chinese culture, the most interesting impression I had was about the use of AI in the exhibition design. While it was immediately apparent that they had used AI to make the mouths of historical paintings come to life in a silly if not slightly creepy way, on further notice I realized that even the image of the palace doors and roof at the entrance of the exhibit had been AI generated too. I was already aware that the use of generative AI was more accepted in East Asia compared to the Anglosphere, and while personally I am not a very anti-AI person, seeing this shocked me a bit. I thought it couldn’t be that hard to find a suitable image to use especially since it would be blown up to such a large scale, leaving all the AI-generated imperfections quite visible. Does an obviously AI-generated image carry less stigma in Taiwan? I would be quite interested to talk to more local Taiwan designers about their perspectives on AI use in these contexts. 

The next day we travelled to the National Palace Museum. After having taken a Chinese art history class last year I was especially excited to see the largest collection of imperial Chinese treasures. It was surreal seeing all these famous works I had only seen before in photos. I especially loved the jade section and the personal items section. Looking at the stunningly gorgeous and delicate kingfisher feather ornaments I was struck by how I grateful I was that I could live in a time where these artifacts are available for everyone to see. I have to thank Sun Zhongshan! I wish I had more time in the museum to truly see everything. 







The next day we went to Yingge pottery town. Beyond the beautiful modern ceramic art, I really appreciated seeing the everyday pottery people used for many years in Taiwan and I was like I got to see the other side of things the National Palace Museum would never show but still are beautiful pieces in their own right. I’ve always enjoyed the paint-your-own-pottery experience so our visit to the ceramic studio was a lot of fun too! Inspired by seeing all the pieces of pottery at the National Palace Museum and the Yingge Ceramic Museum I wanted to make something with auspicious symbols on it as well. I combined the European good luck symbol of the four leaf clover with the Chinese gourd. I also wrote a good luck phrase in English and Chinese and only halfway through I realized that I probably should have written it in Traditional Chinese instead. Oops! But overall I’ve spent the last few days very inspired by local art and design and hope to carry that inspiration with me in the future. 


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