Starting February 8, the 2025 Central Taiwan Lantern Festival lights up Shuinan Central Park, drawing crowds as a top travel spot after the New Year! The event features nine themed lantern areas and more than a hundred lantern displays. Visitors can also take the opportunity to admire the park’s public art pieces, which transform under the moonlight, casting enchanting shadows and offering a new way to experience art.

Since Mayor Lu Shiow-Yen took office, she has been dedicated to creating a livable and aesthetically pleasing city. The public art in the Shuinan Economic and Trade Park brings together works by both domestic and international artists, including kinetic installations, street furniture, interactive sculptures, and artworks with environmental sensors. Spread across Central Park, these ingeniously designed artworks take on a whole new charm at night as their light and shadow effects come to life. While enjoying the lantern displays, visitors are encouraged to take their time and discover how the artworks reveal a different side of themselves under the moonlight.

The Cultural Affairs Bureau highlights Wandering in Greenfield(《綠野遊蹤》), an artwork by Kuo Kuo-Hsiang(郭國相) situated near the Balance Experience Zone in the Central Park. This nearly 10-meter-long installation earned gold awards from international design competitions in the UK, US, France, and Switzerland in 2024. Designed with a sequence of curved arches of different sizes, it resembles a giant caterpillar. Visitors can step inside and engage with the piece, evoking the feeling of traveling through a time tunnel. As night falls, dynamic lighting effects make the caterpillar-like structure appear to crawl across the lawn, offering a surreal and captivating sight.

Nestled in the forest of the Life Experience Zone, Island Sphere Signal(《島球訊號》) by the art team Redner Studio(紅聲數位) features 12 bubble-like spheres that transform in response to the surrounding temperature and humidity. As night falls, they shift colors like breathing bubbles, creating an ethereal floating effect in the forest. The artwork offers a completely different visual experience between day and night. Another art installation, Coordinate Series – Glowing Blossom(《座標系列—螢花》) by the artist from Macau, Kou Tak-Leong(高德亮), is designed around the park’s chinaberry trees. By day, it blends in with ordinary lampposts, but at night, soft red laser lights flow through the branches, evoking the image of cherry blossoms glowing in the dark or fireflies dancing in the air. This captivating transformation catches visitors’ attention, inviting them to take in the enchanting sight.

The Central Park’s history as Shuinan Airport is honored through a preserved section of its runway. Retrospect(《逐光掠影》), designed by the art team GOOD Object design(物件美好), showcases three large airplane landing gears nestled within outlines of aircraft made from sesame stone. At night, runway lights illuminate the grass in neat rows, creating the illusion of a plane ready to take off. This installation stirs memories of Shuinan Airport and invites people to imagine the past.

13 public art pieces have now been completed at Shuinan Central Park, each showcasing a different look at night. During the Lantern Festival, the park invites visitors to explore the lantern displays and admire the art! For more information about the pieces, check out the Taichung Public Art website (https://publicart.taichung.gov.tw/).