Crafting with Bamboo:

We visit the National Taiwan Craft Research and Development Institute (NTCRI) in Nantou County’s Caotun Township. There we beat the summer heat by taking in the refreshing coolness of a bamboo seat. The design of this armless cantilever chair breaks free of the constraints of materials traditionally used for this kind of furniture, such as stainless steel and plastic. A total of 43 molded strips of locally sourced moso bamboo (Phyllostachys edulis) are arranged into a smoothly curving, comfortable shape.

Feng Cheng-tsung’s bamboo installation Fish Trap House is inspired by the traditional fish traps of the indigenous Thao people. (courtesy of Feng Cheng-tsung)

Bamboo Traces+

Chen Tien-li, director of the NTCRI, says that the traditional crafts facilitated the transition from subsistence farming to industrialization, and they were the precursors of industrial products. Before machinery came into widespread use, people resorted to local materials to make the objects they needed in daily life. In terms of the sustainability of both the natural materials and the cycles of production and consumption, crafts anticipated the modern emphasis on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principles.

Hsu Fong-chi, head of the Design Section at the NTCRI, gives us a tour of the institute’s Bamboo Traces+ exhibition. The first floor welcomes visitors with a bamboo chair designed by artist Yen Shui-long (1903–1997). A simplified version of traditional ­bamboo chairs, Yen’s design is characterized by its slightly slanting seat, its smart contours, and its harmonious positioning of bamboo nodes. It prefigures the marriage of traditional craft and modern design we see in 21st-century Taiwan.

A succession of traditional works by eminent bamboo artisans—including Huang Tu-shan (1926–2020), Li Jung-lieh (b. 1936), and Chang Hsien-ping (b. 1943)—catch our eyes next. Moving up to the second floor, we find more modern designs. The NTCRI’s own craft brand, Yii, can be seen here, and in addition to the eye-catching cantilever chair, we marvel at the Bubble Sofa designed by Chou Yu-jui. This installation, comprising numerous woven bamboo “bubbles,” has made it to the cover of an Italian magazine. Also on display are Chou Yu-jui and Su Su-jen’s Bambool (a bamboo stool), Chu Chih-kang and Yeh Chi-hsiang’s Bamboo Strips (a coat stand), and pepper shakers and other exquisite containers made of laminated bamboo by Filipina designer Rachelle Dagñalan and Larry Liu, proprietor of Bamboola. These works open our eyes to bamboo’s rich potential as a craft material.

Chen Tien-li, director of the National Taiwan Craft Research and Development Institute, emphasizes that craft is down to earth and accords with environmental, social, and governance principles.

National treasures crafted from bamboo are displayed at the NTCRI’s Bamboo Traces+ exhibition.

Designed by Yen Shui-long, this bamboo sitting-room chair harbingers the marriage of traditional craft and modern design in Taiwan today.

This unique cantilever chair comprises a total of 43 locally sourced bamboo strips, bent into fluid lines.

Clever crafts

“You know, most people think of traditional crafts as ‘labor-intensive.’ But actually, ‘clever’ is a better word,” says artist Feng Cheng-tsung, whose studio is near the NTCRI. Feng’s Flow—a chaise longue mounted on bamboo balls—is on view at Bamboo Traces+. The graceful surface of the seat consists of long tresses of bamboo strips, heated and bent into fluid lines. Feng has an academic background in industrial design, but he has since found his métier in craft, most of his current projects being installation artworks and sculptures. Bamboo played a key role in initiating his versatile and prolific creative career.

Feng debunks popular misconceptions of craft. By delving into the production process of each piece of work, he explains, we realize that the methods involved are often quite simple—but also very clever. Skilled artisans minimize the number of tools they use, and avail themselves of the simplest materials and the most labor-saving methods. “This is the result of centuries, or even millennia, of refining and polishing, with generations of master makers passing down their crafts through the system of apprenticeship,” Feng says.

Whereas many of us conceive of the traditional crafts as “laborious,” “hard to make,” “low-output,” and therefore “expensive,” the reality is very different. Feng says that the disappearance of many craft products reflects their inability to satisfy modern needs. But they used to be indispensable to people’s daily lives. Their makers were proficient and productive, and worked to consistently high standards.

Feng Cheng-tsung worked with theater director Chen Yu-dien to create scenery for The Rite of Lobster, designing bamboo structures that mimic sea creatures such as lobsters. (photo by Qin Dabei, courtesy of Feng Cheng-tsung)

Feng Cheng-tsung’s career straddles industrial design, craft, and art. Entitled Circle, the bamboo-rimmed mirror in this photo brings together elements of traditional bamboo chairs and steamers.

Feng Cheng-tsung often creates thematically connected works. Shown here is his Fish Trap House IX at the Coronet Theatre in Notting Hill, London. (courtesy of Feng Cheng-tsung)

Feng Cheng-tsung created Meeting Dome for the Fugang Railway Art Festival in Taoyuan. The ball-shaped bamboo structure and the bamboo stools inside it invited visitors to enjoy a moment’s peace and quiet there. (courtesy of Feng Cheng-tsung)

(courtesy of Feng Cheng-tsung)

Inspired by tradition

It takes only four years for bamboo stems to reach maturity. Compared with metals and ceramics, bamboo costs relatively little and is easy to come by. The tools for working bamboo are simple, and there’s no need for expensive specialized equipment. For Feng, bamboo is just as accessible as drawing paper. At the start of his career, these factors made it possible for him to make various experiments without having to worry about racking up enormous expenses. “If not for the freedom that bamboo affords, I would have floundered,” he says. To this day, bamboo projects still account for 40% of his creations.

Feng’s early work Circle, for example, is a bamboo-­rimmed mirror that integrates two traditional craft elements: the wraparound joints often used in bamboo furniture and the circular frames of bamboo steamers. He has also created larger installations inspired by bamboo fish traps, which he learned to make from the indigenous Thao people living near Sun Moon Lake in Central Taiwan. Traditional fish traps allow fish to swim inside and confine them there. Similarly, when displayed at museums, ­theaters, and shops, the airy beauty of Feng’s Fish Trap Houses lures the viewer’s attention, making time stand still.

(courtesy of YYL Art Studio)

Wang Wen-chih created Quandong Dream for the Woodford Folk Festival in Australia. Built of natural materials, this tree house blended into the surrounding landscape perfectly. Visitors found it relaxing to move through the structure. (courtesy of YYL Art Studio)

Looking for local answers

While bamboo has taken on a prominent role in the design industry in recent years, it was a relatively uncommon material for designers 20 years ago, when land artist Wang Wen-chih began to use it for large installations. A fine-art graduate, Wang spent several years studying in France. Try as he might, however, he couldn’t fully relate to Western art. “I was always wondering about the vernacular characteristics of Taiwanese sculpture and weaving,” Wang recalls. In 1993, when he returned from Europe, he decided to look for answers in his native Chiayi.

Unlike those artists who put a premium on introspection and solitude, Wang likes to recline in the midst of his works to experience them in a sensory way. He also enjoys conversing with people, always hoping that his viewers will find it worthwhile to engage with the architectural spatiality of his creations.

Wang’s large installations often require collaborative efforts. For him, the process brings back childhood memories of logging in mountainous Meishan in Chiayi with his brother, a foreman at the time, and his brother’s team. It was this work experience that gave rise to Wang’s modus operandi: he first acquires the bamboo he needs and then puts together a team to collaborate on a particular piece of work.

In 1999 Wang exhibited Memory Ties, his first large-scale woven bamboo work, at the Youth Activity Center at the foot of Mt. Jiujiu in Caotun, Nantou County. For this work—whose Chinese name, Jiujiu Lianhuan (“99 inter­linked rings”) alludes to the traditional “Chinese rings” puzzle (jiulianhuan—“nine interlinked rings”) and echoes the name of Mt. Jiujiu (“99 peaks”)—Wang invited craft weavers to take part and derived his methods from the woven baskets in which indigenous people carried goods on their backs. The work laid the foundation for Wang’s enormous bamboo installations in subsequent years.

Wang Wen-chih has a longstanding interest in the experiential aspects of architectural space.

Crossing boundaries

Since then, Wang has come into his own as a craftsman known both in Taiwan and abroad for gigantic woven works. His representative pieces include House of Shodo­shima, Light of Shodoshima, and Dream of Olive—created on the Japanese island of Shodoshima for the Seto­uchi Triennale—as well as Woven Sky, Woven Cloud, and Quandong Dream for the Woodford Folk Festival in Australia. Wang often builds his basic structures from moso bamboo, with its thick, hard stems, and then fleshes these out with makino bamboo (Phyllostachys makinoi), woven either randomly or according to preconceived patterns.

Wang tells us about his experience at the Setouchi Triennale. For his projects there, he obtained bamboo from local residents, and his team included not only his long-term collaborators from Chiayi but also volunteers from countries as far away as Brazil and Australia, and Shodoshima locals. He says that the teamwork helped ease longstanding tensions between two villages on the island. When the project was completed, everyone sat under the dome, enjoying the mountain tea and pineapple cakes he had brought from Taiwan. While previously few visitors to Shodoshima would stay for longer than a day, Wang’s installation, which was beautifully lit up at night, offered a motive for them to spend more time there.

Installations built of bamboo last for only two or three years. While some of Wang’s bamboo landmarks no longer exist, memories of them continue to warm his viewers’ hearts. Bamboo helps us transcend cultural boundaries and return to the embrace of nature.

Wang Wen-chih has taken part in the Setouchi Triennale in Japan several times. This photo shows his Light of Shodoshima, an enormous dome-shaped structure created in 2013 using some 5,000 bamboo stems. (courtesy of YYL Art Studio)

Beautifully lit up at night, Wang Wen-chih’s bamboo installations on the island of Shodoshima encouraged tourists to stay overnight. The photo shows Zero, Wang’s offering at the 2022 Setouchi Triennale. (courtesy of YYL Art Studio)