News released by Government Information Office

Release Date: 2005-12-17

Translated by Cara Steenstra

Abandoned wooden chairs can be precious creative resource in the eyes of an artist. The Taichung City Bureau of Environmental Protection invited 16 artists from Taiwan, America and Korea to use abandoned chairs as material to create works of art. Amongst these pieces, the two-story high "Big Chair" is the most eye-catching. And these 16 works of art are now on exhibition open to the public.

Taichung City Deputy Mayor Hsiao Jia-Qi expressed that amongst the junk collected at the recycling center at the Bureau of Environmental Protection, a large number of wooden chairs are often found. It was considered a huge waste to leave these chairs to rot, so it was decided that these abandoned chairs should be turned into works of art, hence this “Fantasia of Chairs” Exhibition was organized.

Environmental Protection Bureau Director Li Li-De pointed out that they invited 16 artists from Taiwan, America and South Korea to make use of abandoned wooden chairs as their artistic medium. And through the skills and imagination of these artists, many unique works of art were created in various shapes and sizes.

The most attention grabbing creation was the "Big Chair", it was created by piling many small chairs into a 5m high and 2.6m wide gigantic work of art that no visitor would miss.

This exhibition will be held at the Bureau of Environmental Protection's BaoZhiLin Environmental Protection Education Center from today onwards, and will present prizes to artists who participated in this exhibition.

And along with this "Fantasia of Chairs" Exhibition, the Environmental Protection Bureau is also holding a "Parent and Children Paper Carton Creative Competition". Participants are invited to use abandoned paper cartons and boxes to create anything that they can come up with. It is hoped that these fun activities will also raise people's environmental protection awareness.