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Planning and Implementation Status of the National Museum of Indigenous Peoples Construction Project

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  • Online Date:2020/07/06
  • Modification Time:2020/07/06 15:07:27
  • Hits: 1951

1.“Planning and establishment of the National Museum of Indigenous Peoples (NMIP) to enhance the preservation of indigenous cultural assets” is one of the President’s indigenous policies. CIP initiated site selection across the country in 2017 and selected a foundation of 14 hectares at Chengqing Lake, Kaohsiung. The Executive Yuan approved the museum’s feasibility study report on April 26, 2019, with an estimated budget of NT$3.468 billion. Subsequent work will include integrated planning, urban planning, environmental impact assessment, and artefact collection and pilot research.

 2.The NMIP is positioned as “Taiwan’s first national museum for indigenous peoples to present the subjectivity of Taiwan indigenous peoples at the national level” to “highlight the subjectivity of indigenous peoples” based on “storytelling by indigenous peoples”. In addition, instead of presenting the “traditionalized” indigenous peoples in museums in the past, the NMIP “demonstrates the contemporaneity of indigenous peoples” to proactively promote and implement the preservation of indigenous cultures, demonstrate domestically and internationally the multiculturalism in Taiwan’s subjectivity, and consider the situations, achievements, future expectations, and outlook of contemporary indigenous peoples.

3. The site of the NMIP occupies an area of about 14 hectares, including roughly 10 hectares of trees. To demonstrate the worldview of Taiwan indigenous peoples, local forests and natural landscapes will be maintained for a picture of “people in mountains and waters”. As the five major museum functions: artefact collection, research and interpretation, exhibition space, education promotion, and visitor service are deployed in the buildings on the site, a corresponding spatial demand of about 37,000m2 is proposed. Major zones by function include the exhibition, education promotion, artefact collection, research and interpretation, administration, and visit service zones. Compared to other national museums, the NMIP is a medium museum.

4. In terms of the quality and scale of collections, collections shall include the representative artefacts (implements) of each ethnic group, and the artistic or craft level of each artefact should be “representative” and “classic”. In terms of scale (overall quantity), a minimum of 2,000 to 4,000 artefacts is recommended at the beginning. In artefact gathering and recruitment, according to the procurement mechanism of national museums, an artefact collection and recruitment advisory board can be established to advise the collection and procurement of artefacts. Apart from the existing collection of large public museums, the CIP Cultural Development Center has collected 1,641 artefacts. In addition, CIP can invite villages to replicate artefacts with traditional craft art for exhibition and borrow from or co-organize exhibitions with other museums with related collections.

5. The themes for NMIP exhibitions include “Indigenous Beauty: Craft, Aesthetics, and Society”, “From Tradition to Modernity”, “Indigenous Peoples and Country”, “Austronesian Indigenous Hometown: Taiwan”, “Ancestral Spirit Religion”, “Ecology, Nature, and Indigenous Peoples”, and “We All Are Indigenous”. The landscape and architectural design and artefact collection plan will be initiated in 2021. Construction will be completed in 2026. Exhibition and artefact collection will be completed in 2027. Then, the entire NMIP will be open for service.