Pier-2 Art Center Audio Guide

Pier-2 Art Center: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to Pier-2 Art Center

   Welcome to the Pier-2 Art Center, in Yancheng District in the port city of Kaohsiung, in southern Taiwan. You are standing on the north bank of the Asia New Bay Area, right where the Love River flows into Kaohsiung Port. The official address is Number One, Dayong Road. If you arrived by metro, you are within walking distance of Yanchengpu Station. This is a place with a good plot twist. Today it hums with exhibitions, street performances, digital art and public sculpture. But the whole site grew out of a row of disused dockside warehouses, the kind of buildings a busy port leaves behind once the cargo moves elsewhere. Over the next few stops, I'll walk you through how a fireworks search turned into an arts center, how the city took the project on, and how the harbor's industrial past still shapes the art you see. Have a look at the long, low warehouse buildings around you as we begin, because they are the real main characters here.

2. 02

   A Fireworks Show and a Lucky Discovery

   The story starts with fireworks. In 2000, the central government decided, for the first time, to stage the National Day fireworks display in southern Taiwan, and Kaohsiung was chosen. The city's organizers went looking for a good launch venue and found a vast dockside space just beside the harbor, lined with disused warehouses. Those warehouses caught the eye of a group of passionate local artists. They felt that this southern metropolis lacked a cultural park to call its own. In 2001 they founded the Pier-2 Artistic Development Association, with the aim of making the site the headquarters of artistic development in southern Taiwan. By 2002 the Art Center was up and running. The credit is shared. It was the persistence of those local artists that helped release the area and remake it as an arts center. Think of it as a spark in the most literal sense. A search for a place to set off fireworks ended up lighting a much longer-lasting cultural fire.

3. 03

   The City Steps In and the Site Grows

   In 2006, the Bureau of Cultural Affairs of the Kaohsiung City Government took over the center and became its managing body. The opening had enjoyed moderate success, and the city now began a series of expansions. It purchased or rented further storage sheds from the Taiwan Sugar Corporation, Hua Nan Bank and the Port of Kaohsiung, which is why the site feels like a district rather than a single building. With the city at the helm, a rolling calendar of events began. Among them were the Kaohsiung Design Festival, the Chinese Character Exhibition, the Kaohsiung International Steel and Iron Sculpture Festival and the Kaohsiung International Container Art Festival. There were also the Mega Port Festival, the Wall Moon Theatre, the Kaohsiung Youth Innovative Design Exhibition and a performance season called Point and Wavy Ribbon Formation. The center is also described as the founding highlight of Taiwan's Cultural and Creative Corridor. In other words, it became an early anchor for the idea that creativity could be a foundation of Kaohsiung's cultural and creative industries.

4. 04

   Iron, Ships and Hollywood Pixels

   Pier-2 has always kept a conversation going with the port's past. The center engages with the histories of the commercial harbor, of iron and steel, and of shipbuilding and shipbreaking. That is why festivals here celebrate steel sculpture and shipping containers, materials that belong to the working waterfront. The warehouses have also hosted some surprising tenants. In 2012, the California-based visual effects company Rhythm and Hues Studio, whose team created the graphics for director Ang Lee's best-selling film Life of Pi, opened its fifth overseas branch at Warehouse 7. Ang Lee himself presided over the plaque-hanging ceremony. Sony's PlayStation Incubation Center was stationed at Warehouse 9 as well. In 2015 the center launched the Pier-2 Artists in Residence Program, known as PAIR, to bring in more art perspectives and practices from beyond. So the same dockside buildings that once held stored goods now host artists, designers and digital creators, which is a nice update on what a warehouse is for.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off

   As you wander on, remember that the Pier-2 Art Center is still changing. In March 2021 a fire destroyed an old warehouse here, a reminder that these historic buildings are fragile as well as beloved. The site's story has never been finished, only continued. Take your time with the open spaces between the warehouses. Public art, digital video work and street performances can all turn up in the same stretch, and the harbor is never far away. Notice how the scale of the buildings, built for goods and not for galleries, shapes the way you experience each piece. And if you want to dig deeper, ask me about the fireworks origin story, the festivals that grew out of the port's iron and steel heritage, or the residency program that keeps new voices arriving. There is always another corner of Pier-2 worth a second look.