A giant mosaic made from recycled plastic bottles depicting Vincent van Gogh’s famous painting The Starry Night is to be unveiled on Saturday in Keelung’s Embrace Cultural and Creative Park (擁恆文創園區).
The mosaic, named The Starry Paradise, covers 53 hectares and is expected to set a new Guinness World Record as the largest of its kind.
The project is almost complete and the artist responsible for its creation has received more than 4 million recycled plastic bottles in donations, the park management said.
Photo: Lu Hsien-hsiu, Taipei Times
Finding the plastic bottles to create The Starry Paradise was a trying experience, said Wang Cheng-wei (王振瑋), the designer and overseer of the piece, who is also a lecturer at the National Changhua University of Education and a renowned sculptor involved in many public art projects.
The bottles were donated by recycling centers as well as individuals, and for every 10 bottles that were received, the park donated NT$1 to the Canlove Social Service Association, a charity that aims to help people with depression, Wang said.
The Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation in Hualien County assisted in coordinating organizational efforts and promoted the project on Facebook, he said.
“The project focuses on the concepts of healing and art, while serving as a charity that addresses environmental concerns,” park spokesperson Jeffrey Wang (王志欽) said.
Finding sufficient numbers of blue bottles was especially challenging, as blue was a prominent color in the original painting, Wang Cheng-wei said, adding that blue plastic bottles are relatively rare in Taiwan and that they had to work hard to obtain correct hues of blue bottles.
“This project is a dialogue between Vincent van Gogh and me,” Wang Cheng-wei said
“It has different visual effects in daytime when the grass under the mosaic forms a contrast with the arrangement’s colors, while at night LED lights illuminate the places where stars are in Van Gogh’s composition,” the artist said.
The installation is to start receiving visitors on New Year’s Day, the park management said.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it is fully aware of the situation following reports that the son of ousted Chinese politician Bo Xilai (薄熙來) has arrived in Taiwan and is to marry a Taiwanese. Local media reported that Bo Guagua (薄瓜瓜), son of the former member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is to marry the granddaughter of Luodong Poh-Ai Hospital founder Hsu Wen-cheng (許文政). The pair met when studying abroad and arranged to get married this year, with the wedding breakfast to be held at The One holiday resort in Hsinchu
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
‘SIGN OF DANGER’: Beijing has never directly named Taiwanese leaders before, so China is saying that its actions are aimed at the DPP, a foundation official said National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) yesterday accused Beijing of spreading propaganda, saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had singled out President William Lai (賴清德) in his meeting with US President Joe Biden when talking about those whose “true nature” seek Taiwanese independence. The Biden-Xi meeting took place on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Peru on Saturday. “If the US cares about maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait, it is crucial that it sees clearly the true nature of Lai and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in seeking Taiwanese independence, handles the Taiwan question with extra
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
RSS