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Chien-Hui, Chen / Director, Daxi Wood Art Ecomuseum, Taoyuan

"Unveiling the Centennial Grace of Daxi’s Woodcraft Heritage: Making Craftsmanship the Heart of Small-Town Branding"

Blessed by its location near the lush, forested mountains, Daxi was well on its way to becoming a major trade hub for camphor and tea in northern Taiwan, thanks to the rich natural resources and river transport conveniences made possible by the Dakekan River (the Dahan River of today). The goods were eventually sold overseas through Dadaocheng and Tamsui; the booming trade spurred urban development of this small town. In light of the rising demand for housing, furniture, and wood utensils for everyday use, Daxi’s local families recruited master woodcraftsmen from China to open local woodshops and mentor young apprentices. Woodcraft industry expanded as the youth launched their own businesses. Daxi’s woodcraftsmen began to accept special woodwork commissions in the Japanese Colonial period. In the post-war era, the woodworkers and craftsmen made a name for themselves with their delightfully sophisticated dowries, altar and offering table pieces. Specialized craftsmen of fine woodworking, pattern carving, lacquering, shell embedding, and ink painting were mentored in earnest, solidifying Daxi’s reputation as the hub of highly sophisticated woodcrafts and furniture pieces.

Daxi’s wood furniture, over the last century, has been strongly characterized by the use of premium wood and mortise-and-tenon joinery, as well as serious conversations on building customized, quality furniture that meets the user’s needs. Unfortunately, these crafts are now on the brink of being lost forever as woodcraftsmen age, and that there is an inadequate number of newcomers to replace them. As competition grows fierce in the market, we as committed cultural workers are hard-pressed to upgrade furniture designers’ creative prowess, in order to produce pieces that meet modern lifestyle demands while preserving the century-old craft heritage, as well as smartly positioning Daxi’s creative brand.

Wood crafting was identified as one of its core interests when the Daxi Wood Art Ecomuseum was established in 2015. Museum organizers surveyed the state of the wood crafting industry, resources available, and took a proactive approach to integrate the museum’s research, collection, exhibition, and education services to partner with the craftsmen. Three major strategies: “Transform knowledge, experience lifestyles, support industry” guided the museum’s actions, including curating diverse wood craft and furniture exhibitions spanning the traditional and innovative, organizing connections and exchanges focused on wood crafting, and holding workshops that give the general public the chance to improve their aesthetic appreciation and experience with wood and crafting. All of this has contributed to Daxi’s brand image as a town of crafts.

To familiarize the public with a richer experience of Daxi’s cultural lifestyle, the Museum hosted the first Daxi Wood Art and Life Festival in 2023. The two main events scheduled during the festival are: the first Daxi International Wood Furniture Craft and Design Competition and Daxi Craft Week, which took place all around Daxi in the streets, woodshops and business spaces, as well as the Daxi Wood Art Ecomuseum buildings; the festival included open houses at woodshops, wood furniture exhibitions, hands-on woodworking, lifestyle showcases, craft markets, and exchange activities and forums, giving people a chance to immerse in Daxi’s arts and crafts, and engage with professionals. When they leave, they’d take with them an lasting memory of Daxi as a historic town of crafts.

We are convinced that only by supporting crafts, making crafts part of people’s lives, and helping them develop an appreciation for craftsmanship, can we preserve Daxi’s woodcrafts, encourage their development and secure their sustainable growth. The logo of the Daxi Wood Art and Life Festival also acknowledges the core idea of bringing woodcrafts into everyday lives: A piece of wood can be cut, crafted, and imbued with creativity and design to add beauty to all of our lives.

The first Daxi International Wood Furniture Craft and Design Competition is an event to support the wood industry. The competition aims to raise awareness of Daxi’s rich resources and heritage, and to strengthen Daxi’s role as a platform for aspiring craftsmen to come together and exchange ideas. The theme of the competition is “An Inspired Life with Wood Furniture,” to encourage hobbyists and professional craftsmen to put forth ideas to integrate wood crafts into daily lives. The competition format and judging criteria acknowledge Daxi’s heritage as a century-old town of crafts, while encouraging innovative wood furniture design. The criterion, “innovativeness” encourages craftsmen to create beautiful furniture pieces using their design skills and new materials; “technicality” requires that the craftsmen integrate traditional and contemporary woodworking into their creative process; “practicality” aims at promoting crafts in everyday life, highlighting the business and mass production potential of submissions.

To attract more talent and encourage more aspiring woodworkers to support furniture production, a youth division and an amateur division were included in the competition. Two special awards for contemporary and traditional work were added as well. Talented craftsmen from Taiwan and abroad were invited to participate, and the 16 winning submissions will be showcased in a special exhibition. An invitation-based brand exhibition was also held in conjunction, featuring pieces by master craftsmen, and submissions from workshops around Taiwan, plus makeover brands launched by traditional furniture makers who sought a business shift, along with Danish furniture brands. Hopes were high that the event would foster idea exchanges between craftsmen of various practices and Daxi’s traditional artists to revive this historic small town.

The Daxi Wood Art Ecomuseum has also been hard at work building bridges between Taiwan’s wood craftsmen and representatives in the industry, the government, academia, and research institutes, in order to continue Daxi’s heritage and build its brand. During the 2023 Daxi Wood Art and Life Festival, the Museum organized several forums and master lectures. The speakers of the master lectures included: Mr. Kasper Holst Pedersen, CEO of the Danish furniture brand PP Møbler, now in its third generation. Mr. Pedersen discussed his experience in creating a landmark chair piece, by combining traditional craftsmanship with the spirit of design, through numerous trials-and-errors, to finally create an item that acknowledges craftsmanship and technical innovation.

Meanwhile, Professor Takamitsu Tanaka of Iwate University shared how the culture and traditional woodcraft techniques can be aligned with forward-looking design ideas, through the use of mortise-and-tenon joinery in developing everyday utensils and toys. We also invited owners of wood art and furniture workshops from around Taiwan to share their entrepreneurial inspirations, giving attendees a glimpse of the way forward for the wood industry. Furthermore, craftspeople from the Ishikawa Prefectural Training Institute of Yamanaka Woodturning came to Daxi with their pieces, showing the attendees how crucial it is to mentor young apprentices to facilitate the transformation of traditional crafts. We must also think of ways to build a supportive climate to encourage young aspirants to join local industry. These events offered us a glimpse into the birth of new pieces when we combine traditional craftsmanship with new thinking, and incorporate crafts into an everyday living.

In the future, the Daxi Wood Art Ecomuseum will continue its research into Daxi’s wood craftsmen and industry. A Daxi wood art research database, as well as a family tree of masters and apprentices in the industry, will be erected to facilitate the preservation of Daxi wood crafts; plans are underway to publish craftsmen’ stories and curate exhibitions. We will also continue to bring together wood furniture makers and workshops, heritage furniture industry members who are ready for a business shift, workshops with unique brand potentials; raw material suppliers and manufacturers, high schools and universities with aspiring craftsmen; and government agencies in the agriculture, culture, and craft sectors that can influence policy and funding. We hope to facilitate more exchange activities and partnership with Daxi’s heritage workers, and build an interdisciplinary collaboration platform created and run by all stakeholders to support the development of the craft and industry. We are committed to mentoring new talent, highlighting the town’s cultural characteristics and furniture-making history, and combine these with design thinking to create and market furniture that caters to Taiwan’s folk aesthetics. We want to expand Daxi’s positive influence as a town of furniture crafts, so that fresh ideas and resources can be infused into the town’s essence for the continuation of Daxi’s woodcraft tradition.

▶ Daxi Wood Art Ecomuseum Official Website https://wem.tycg.gov.tw/

▶ This article is included in "The First Daxi International Wood Furniture Craft and Design Competition Exhibition Journal". We warmly invite you to purchase for further reading.