The T-Dung Café used to be an abandoned hostel, which through the effort of Ms. Kai-Ling Hsu, was reconstructed as a multi-purpose exhibition space that preserved the metal structures of the original architecture. The new building was named T-Dung (which means metal house in Taiwanese), the establishment of the T-Dung Café provides local artists with residency opportunities, as well as creating an art village that includes the Yu-Hsiu Art Museum, Jiujiu Feng Eco-Art Park, National Taiwan Craft Research and Development Institute, and artist studios. The main goal of the T-Dung Café was meant to set an example of a good deed for others to follow.

ADDRESS:

No. 21 Aly. 150, Jianxing Road, Caotun Township, Nantou County, 542

HOW TO GET THERE:

Take bus and get off at Pin-Lin Station. Then walk for 15 minutes

TEL:

04-92572915

OPENING HOURS:

9:30-17:00 (Closed on Mondays)

ADMISSION FEE:

Free admission

EXHIBITION INFORMATION:

The Chinese-style table meal, which is common in Taiwanese home dining, is a unique dining tradition that facilitates emotional connections and relationships over food. In the process of eating, many details can be perceived, and many stories can be told. Our familiar ceramic utensils carry these memories.

For this exhibition, Tsai Pei-ju used a diverse range of new and old materials, 3D scanning, 3D printing, gold lacquer repair, and staple repair in her works. In her works, we can see inspirations from early ceramic household objects and new elements from observing the Taiwanese diet. The resulting designs are unique spaces like houses that contain all kinds of family stories. From these stories, we can see the rich diversity in Taiwan’s family compositions, with some hints of the grey of modern urban life, alienating yet full of expectations and yearning. These ideas are conveyed to viewers through her works, urging them to reflect on their families.

Tsai Pei-ju’s works offer slices of her life experiences through the types of foods, symbolizing her multiple identities as an artist, graduate student, and art educator. Moving from space to space, her daily routine that is always connected to ceramic vessels is a dissociated existence as opposed to the stability of home. Her unique observations of daily life and the symbols thus extracted informs possibilities in analyses of Taiwan’s history and culture. Contemporary ceramic art is not limited to expressions of ceramic techniques; it incorporates and absorbed other techniques while exploring the reality and imagination in ceramics.