Serving Up the Entire East Rift Valley!

Down on the first floor, ceramic bowls and tin plates line up along a long table—honestly, it looks like it's just waiting for you to pull up a chair and dig in. Looking at the photos released by the craft center, a green-and-yellow striped cloth slices cleanly through the ceramics and those wildly irregular, highly opinionated plates, their metal surfaces flashing with a blinding gleam. Drill your gaze deeper into the table, and a purple-white ribbon shape snakes its way down a cylinder. 陶錫工藝's 縱谷盛宴, takes the light, shadows, and forests of the East Rift Valley—and the sheer kinetic flow of the Xiuguluan River—and kneads it all directly into tableware. Seriously, if you want to serve up good mountains and good water, we can finally stop relying on printing landscapes on the outside of coffee mugs.

Spin around, and the other side features bark-fibre works by 黑色雋永. A folding screen generously leaves the fibre's innate, feral wrinkles intact; lamps let warm light bleed through uneven brown edges. This series launches from the most grounded, dirt-under-the-fingernails foraging, material use, and production of tribal life, throwing a fastball straight at a very practical question: How the hell do we still use tree bark today? How do we drop it seamlessly into the daily living spaces we roll around in every day?

Both sets of works that make you want to grab a chair and sit down are part of the 不只是工藝｜建構藝術語彙 exhibition, serving as the "Hualien Stage" of the National Taiwan Craft Research and Development Institute's 2026–2027 Craft Pilgrimage (工藝遶境). The whole show wanders along the pathways of "vessel" and "environment," and before you know it, you've accidentally tripped from everyday utensils into the realm of contemporary art. Here, local Hualien stone, traditional Indigenous weaving, and avant-garde fashion share the stage with zero baggage. The roster isn't holding back either, featuring 張恩滿, 胡家瑜, and a powerhouse crossover between 陳劭彥 and 嚴玉英.

Step up to the second floor, the air shifts, and you hit another exhibition: 逐光－復返. Here, the makers use the silt left behind by the disaster in Guangfu Township, turning the very mud that carries the weight of that event into vessels and artworks. Both shows run from September 4 all the way to November 22. Downstairs is the abundant dining table of the Rift Valley; upstairs is the post-disaster silt. Both pull materials from the exact same soil, but the weight in your hands couldn't be more different.