◎ Burnt-faced Spoonbill
"Taipei Cultural Tour" is Jiang Wanan's main cultural policy, but seeing the newly launched "Taipei Cultural Tour: Van Gogh" only once again exposed his unfamiliarity with the city and his narrow imagination about urban governance.
Jiang Wanan recommended "Taipei Cultural Tour: Van Gogh", which once again exposed his unfamiliarity with the city and his narrow imagination about urban governance. The picture shows Jiang Wanan standing on the grand staircase of the Taipei Performing Arts Center where Van Gogh's portrait is displayed. (File photo)
Culture is an area where it is difficult to gain immediate political achievements, but it is the key to affecting a city’s shared memory and collective imagination. Taipei has been a city for more than 140 years, and has accumulated an urban texture intertwined with different generations, ethnic groups and histories. It definitely has a deep enough heritage to develop its own cultural style.
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However, Jiang Wanan's policy logic is always short-sighted and short-term and applies a successful formula that can be quickly copied.
Seeing Kaohsiung’s success in creating a concert economy, I thought that the concert economy could be replicated by relying solely on the Dome. Seeing that young people nowadays are pursuing various IPs, they continue to introduce foreign IPs in various activities, hoping to create topics and attract crowds.
In this Van Gogh chapter, Chiang Wanan said that he hopes to allow citizens to re-experience Taipei's unique cultural charm through "the fusion of Eastern and Western characteristics." When interviewed, Culture Secretary Cai Shiping proudly said, "Taipei City has always hoped to introduce some internationally renowned IP, especially related to art and culture."
If we were just holding a one-time entertainment event today, there would be nothing wrong with introducing well-known foreign IPs to create topics and attract people.
But today's goal is to promote "Taipei's cultural highlights", but it seems particularly absurd to choose a Van Gogh who has no connection with the city's land and life as the theme image.
Chiang Wanan took handsome photos while sitting on the grand staircase of the Taipei Performing Arts Center with a portrait of Van Gogh. But ironically, the Dutch architectural team that built the Beijing Institute of Technology originally drew design inspiration from elements of life in Taipei. What the mayor should really do is to make the Beijing Institute of Technology itself a representative symbol of Taipei's city characteristics to the world. Just like when people mention Sydney, they think of the Sydney Opera House.
The real urban cultural policy should be to let Beijing Art itself become the protagonist, instead of putting a face of Van Gogh on it, which is called "internationalization".
This is especially true for Huanmin New Village in Toad Mountain. This is one of the very few "living military dependents' villages" in Taiwan that still retains the life of its original residents. It is also a rare mountain settlement in the city, so it is known as "Taipei's Little Jiufen". It is also one of the few cultural venues where you can enjoy the natural landscape, feel the history of the military dependents' village and the lives of the residents, and overlook the city skyline at the same time.
The Taipei Performing Arts Center draws design inspiration from Taipei life elements and has become a representative symbol of Taipei's city characteristics to the world. Pictured is the Taipei Performing Arts Center. (File photo)
But Jiang Wanan moved Van Gogh's "Sunflowers" into Toad Mountain, saying that he would use it to "show the vitality of the settlement"; but how on earth are you going to use Van Gogh's "Sunflowers" to tell the vitality and cultural story of Toad Mountain?
Taipei has never lacked artists who depict this land, record this city, and portray the lives and vitality of ordinary people. It is a pity that Jiang Wanan will never be seen.
In his cultural imagination, it seems that as long as various elements that he considers to be high-profile are inserted throughout Taipei, it can become a so-called "cultural landscape."
This is just as ignorant as when some politicians in the past walked into aboriginal tribes, wore all the costumes of different ethnic groups, and then screamed like Taishan, thinking that they were doing cultural propaganda.
As the mayor, if you cannot see and are not familiar with this land, you will only borrow other people's culture everywhere. In the end, you will just use Taipei City's public resources to promote their stories for others.
What the mayor of Taipei should really do is not to use Van Gogh's works to gain popularity, but to let Taipei people use their own works to show the culture that truly belongs to this city.
(The author is a writer)
