A gallery to exhibit and store aerial photographs taken by documentary filmmaker Chi Po-lin (齊柏林) opens to the public today in New Taipei City’s Tamsui District (淡水).
The Chi Po-lin Space (齊柏林空間) — located in a warehouse behind the Douglas Lapraik building on the Tamsui waterfront — is to house about 300,000 photographs taken by Chi, the Chi Po-lin Foundation said.
Chi’s family were joined at an opening ceremony on Monday by New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜), former New Taipei City mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫), film director Wu Nien-jen (吳念真) and company Taiwan Aerial Imaging chairwoman Wan Kuan-li (萬冠麗).
Photo courtesy of the Chi Po-lin Foundation
Wu — who narrated Chi’s 2013 documentary Beyond Beauty: Taiwan from Above (看見台灣) — said that hopefully the gallery will inspire others to take up Chi’s legacy and work for the protection of Taiwan’s environment.
Wu said his friends asked him why a memorial space was created for Chi, who made only one film.
He told them that the documentary’s impact on the public and the discussion it generated warranted a memorial space, Wu said.
Chi was killed while scouting locations for a follow-up documentary on June 10, 2017, in a helicopter crash that also claimed the lives of his assistant and the pilot.
The gallery’s first exhibition, titled “View Above Mountains,” features images taken from above Taiwan’s mountains using high-precision aerial photography equipment, the foundation said.
Chi’s son, Chi Ting-huan (齊廷洹), said he expects the photographs to move the visitors in the same way that his father was moved by seeing Taiwan’s mountains from the sky.
The exhibition would also feature the equipment his father used in his dark room, as well as pieces from the helicopter wreckage, Chi Ting-huan said.
Hopefully this will help people understand the complexities of aerial photography and the skills required, he said.
In the 20 years that Chi Po-lin photographed the Taipei Basin from the air, his route took him over the mouth of the Tamsui River on his return trip to Taipei, so the foundation chose a good location for the gallery, Chi Ting-huan said.
The exhibition runs until Jan. 1 next year, the foundation said.
The gallery would be open every day except for Tuesdays, it added.
Regular admission is NT$150, while visitors aged 65 or older, Tamsui residents and physically challenged people would pay NT$100, it said.
The foundation is also to run a culture and creativity center at the Tamsui Art Gallery, with food and beverages and an art gallery on the first floor, and a digital collection on the second floor.
A relatively large earthquake may strike within the next two weeks, following a magnitude 5.2 temblor that shook Taitung County this morning, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. An earthquake struck at 8:18am today 10.2km west of Taitung County Hall in Taitung City at a relatively shallow depth of 6.5km, CWA data showed. The largest intensity of 4 was felt in Taitung and Pingtung counties, which received an alert notice, while areas north of Taichung did not feel any shaking, the CWA said. The earthquake was the result of the collision between the Philippine Plate and the Eurasian Plate, the agency said, adding
Snow fell in the mountainous areas of northern, central and eastern Taiwan in the early hours of yesterday, as cold air currents moved south. In the northern municipality of Taoyuan, snow started falling at about 6am in Fusing District (復興), district head Su Tso-hsi (蘇佐璽) said. By 10am, Lalashan National Forest Recreation Area, as well as Hualing (華陵), Sanguang (三光) and Gaoyi (高義) boroughs had seen snowfall, Su said. In central Taiwan, Shei-Pa National Park in Miaoli County and Hehuanshan National Forest Recreation Area in Nantou County saw snowfall of 5cm and 6cm respectively, by 10am, staff at the parks said. It began snowing
Global bodies should stop excluding Taiwan for political reasons, President William Lai (賴清德) told Pope Francis in a letter, adding that he agrees war has no winners. The Vatican is one of only 12 countries to retain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, and Taipei has watched with concern efforts by Beijing and the Holy See to improve ties. In October, the Vatican and China extended an accord on the appointment of Catholic bishops in China for four years, pointing to a new level of trust between the two parties. Lai, writing to the pope in response to the pontiff’s message on Jan. 1’s
HOLIDAY EXERCISE: National forest recreation areas from north to south offer travelers a wide choice of sights to connect with nature and enjoy its benefits Hiking is a good way to improve one’s health, the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency said, as it released a list of national forest recreation areas that travelers can visit during the Lunar New Year holiday. Taking a green shower of phytoncides in the woods could boost one’s immunity system and metabolism, agency Director-General Lin Hwa-ching (林華慶) cited a Japanese study as saying. For people visiting northern Taiwan, Lin recommended the Dongyanshan National Forest Recreation Area in Taoyuan’s Fusing District (復興). Once an important plantation in the north, Dongyanshan (東眼山) has a number of historic monuments, he said. The area is broadly covered by
RSS