Photos from the opening of the "Weaving Journey" special exhibition at the Atayal Ethnology Museum in New Taipei City. (Provided by New Taipei City Aboriginal Affairs Bureau)
[Reporter Weng Yuhuang/New Taipei Report] How can the Atayal cultural relics that left Taiwan a century ago encounter Wulai again through research and reproduction? The New Taipei City Aboriginal Bureau launched the "Weaving Travel hmgiru" at the Wulai Atayal Ethnic Museum. "tnunan: The circulation and reunion of Atayal fabrics across a century" special exhibition brought the results of cultural relic research to the World Museum in Vienna, Austria in 2025 back to Wulai. Five pieces of fabrics were successfully reproduced and unveiled at the "Atayal. Wulai" permanent exhibition on the 2nd. Students from Wulai Elementary and Secondary Schools (elementary schools) became "Little Taiyang" guides, introducing their hometown from their own perspective.
In the permanent exhibition, Xiao Taiyang will introduce the Atayal collection to everyone. (Provided by New Taipei City Aboriginal Affairs Bureau)
The New Taipei City Aboriginal Affairs Bureau stated that this "weaving tour" began with the Thai Museum's ongoing research on overseas Atayal cultural relics in recent years. In 2025, the Thai Museum will go to Europe to collect and research information on Atayal cultural relics collected in overseas museums, from size, material, color and density of warp and weft lines. etc., and then signed a memorandum of cooperation with the World Museum in Vienna to continue to promote collection research and cultural exchanges. The Thai Museum did not let the overseas research stop at the research report, but brought the data back to Wulai and invited Atayal weavers to re-view, analyze and actually reproduce it.
Remade cultural relic: (picture right) This piece is made of three pieces of flat weave and patterned patterns combined into one shawl, which can be draped over the shoulders, chest or back in different ways, showing multiple ways of wearing it. (Provided by New Taipei City Aboriginal Affairs Bureau).
The "Weaving Journey" exhibition begins with the history of Atayal cultural relics being transferred across the sea and entering overseas museums in the 19th century. It leads the audience into the current research site of overseas cultural relics, and then returns to Wulai to see how the tribesmen reinterpreted and remade the cultural relics. The exhibition ends with "unfinished" thoughts: reestablishing the relationship between cultural relics and places cannot be completed in one study or exhibition, but is an ongoing process. Therefore, the exhibition not only presents the completed works, but also brings research, reproduction, video recording and contemporary creation to the exhibition, allowing the audience to see how a cultural relic goes from being "collected" to re-entering local knowledge and cultural practice.
Among them, five pieces of Atayal fabrics reproduced based on the materials in the collection of the World Museum in Vienna are important highlights of this exhibition. This time, Yetong Workshop was invited to start from overseas research records to re-understand warping, weaving, color and pattern formation methods, and to explore the production logic behind the fabrics step by step. Through weave analysis, technical deduction, actual weaving and repeated trials, technical details such as warp cutting and floating weaving that are not easy to read directly from the collection materials are gradually recognized and understood.
