Policy brief·Taiwan
Taiwan's 10th Public Art Awards: Judges Say the Field Is Growing From Objects Into an Ecosystem
Taiwan's tenth Public Art Awards, with 32 winning projects announced, gave its jury special prize to the AR-based Meta Garden at the Taipei Botanical Garden and its art creation prize to the Harbor Echo bell installation in Kaohsiung; the top excellence prize was withheld.
Taiwan's tenth Public Art Awards have been announced, and the judging panel says the field is moving decisively away from standalone monuments toward long-term, participatory practice. In a published roundtable, the jurors describe public art increasingly as an ecosystem - something cultivated through maintenance, community ties and institutional commitment rather than delivered as a finished object.
The jury special prize went to Meta Garden, the public-art program for the new conservatory at the Taipei Botanical Garden. The project pairs the garden's ecological and educational mission with a digital, forward-looking medium: visitors scan QR codes on information plaques to enter an augmented-reality landscape of Taiwan's endangered native plants. The judges praised its aesthetic planning and, just as much, the garden's follow-through - training volunteer guides and extending environmental education after the work's completion.
The art creation prize went to Harbor Echo, a timed bell installation around Kaohsiung's Pier-2 district, commissioned by Taiwan International Ports Corporation. The bell components were imported from the Netherlands and built by a specialist tower-clock firm, with architects leading the landscape design so the work settles naturally into the waterfront's transformation. One juror recalled being struck by its scale and finish - and by the sound carrying across the harbor, drawing visitors toward it.
Other winners point to the same shift. The public participation prize recognized a market-renovation project in which the team built sustained collaboration with vendors and residents. The maintenance prize went to the Shuiyuan Market facade project in Taipei, where the city government stayed involved long enough to invite artist Yaacov Agam to take part in restoring the work himself.
Notably, the top excellence prize was withheld this year: the judges said that while many entries excelled in individual aspects, none met the award's all-round requirements. The decision itself reads as a statement about where the bar now sits.
