Ten Years of Artistic Energies Bloom on Campus
January 31, 2026 by Wenping Chen / Kaohsiung, The Look News
The Center for Arts and Culture, School of Common Education, National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology (NKUST) is holding the "Jhumei Yuan Literary and Art Award Collection Exhibition" from now until March 20, 115 in the Exhibition Hall on the first floor of the Arts and Culture Center on the Jian Gong Campus. The exhibition is curated around the works in the collection of the Wang Yuan-Lin Culture and Arts Foundation, which has been promoting the "Jhumei Yuan Literary Arts" for many years. Through the introduction of art into the daily life of the campus, the exhibition demonstrates the deep-rooted power of corporations and universities to work together to build a vision of an artistic city.
This is also one of the important activities for Yang Qingyu to promote the art of engineering during his tenure as president, and it is also the last arts and culture activity for him to bid farewell to the university as he is about to retire. At the opening ceremony yesterday afternoon (1/30), Mr. Yang was present to host the event, witnessing that his efforts to promote arts education at the university have been well received by the arts community and have borne fruit.
Starting from the ten-year history of the Foundation's collection, the curatorial structure of this exhibition presents the four major themes of "Origin/Paulao," "Ideal/Home," "Fantasia," and "We," presenting the diversified explorations of different generations of creators in terms of creative forms, artistic vocabularies, and ideological perspectives, and allowing the viewers to experience the artistic landscapes that have been created by weaving together the time, the land, and the humanities in the midst of the artworks.
The first wave of the exhibition is titled "Indigenous Country, Bao Lai" and features fourteen works from the collection, curated by Sheng-Hua Cheng, a professor at the Department of Fine Arts and Master's Program of the Tainan University of Applied Science and Technology. Through a delicate and profound curatorial perspective, the exhibition guides the audience to look back at the local landscape and ponder the relationship between indigenous memories and contemporary society, making art an important medium for understanding the land and self-identity.
The "Bamboo Plum Source Literary Award" was established in 2015, organized by the Wang Yuanlin Culture and Arts Foundation, with the initial purpose of promoting local art. Over the past ten years, it has attracted the participation of more than 3,000 art creators and accumulated a collection of more than 100 outstanding works of art, gradually developing into an important art award with national influence. After the successful conclusion of the 10th edition, the award was renamed the "Wang Yuan-Lin Fine Arts Award", symbolizing a significant milestone in the Foundation's efforts to promote Taiwan's arts and culture to the international arena.
In the exhibition venue, each piece of artwork is quietly displayed, responding to the historical texture of the land as well as reflecting the collective emotions of contemporary society. Visitors walk between art and life, feeling how the creators respond to their own times and environments with images, materials and concepts. From time to time, teachers and students stop to discuss the works, creating a unique artistic and cultural landscape on campus.
National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology (NKUST) said that as an important local university in Kaohsiung, it has long been committed to promoting cross-domain dialogue between science and technology and the humanities, and by joining hands with local enterprises and cultural organizations, it has not only allowed the arts to enter the space of the campus, but has also become an important cultural nutrient that nourishes the future development of the city, and has also allowed students to expand a broader humanistic vision in addition to their professional studies.
The university pointed out that the "Zhumei Yuan Literary Award Collection Exhibition" is not only an art exhibition, but also a cultural action about place, creation and generational dialogue, hoping that through continuous exhibition and exchange, the art will continue to make its voice heard in Kaohsiung, and accumulate cultural energy belonging to the South between the campus and the city.
