TaichungCaotun

Exhibition Design

Design as the Best Language: A Taiwan-Sweden Craft Exchange Exhibition

Howdy Creative curated the Taiwan-Sweden Lacquer Art Exchange exhibition for NTCRI, translating years of cross-border collaboration into a visual and spatial narrative for the resulting works, presented to audiences at home and abroad.

Year
2025
Client
National Taiwan Craft Research and Development Institute (NTCRI)
Services
Exhibition Design
Taiwan-Sweden Lacquer Art Collaborative Exhibition key visual applications: poster, phone | Howdy Creative

Challenge

Taiwanese lacquer art carries deep heritage and refined technique, but in a globalized market the question of how to move past traditional forms, speak to contemporary living, and build a clear identity internationally is the central challenge for Taiwanese craft's push abroad. Technical mastery alone isn't enough; the field needs an exhibition language that carries the culture forward while reading as genuinely contemporary.

Goal

The project used cross-border collaboration with Sweden to inject new creative energy into Taiwanese lacquer art. The goal wasn't only to develop new products with international market potential, but also to use the resulting touring exhibition to carry Taiwanese craft's soft power onto the world stage, raise Taiwan's visibility in international design, and open up domestic creators' international perspective along the way.

Entrance key visual standee for the Taiwan-Sweden International Craft Exchange Exhibition
Entrance: geometric, layered lacquer-art key visual
Full view of the Taiwan-Sweden International Craft Exchange Exhibition space
Full view of the exhibition space, blending artisan works with exhibition design

Approach

  1. Positioned the project as a full international craft exchange program, moving step by step from early-stage research, through matching designers with artisans, to the final showcase.
  2. Distilled the geometric, layered, and woven qualities found in the Taiwan-Sweden co-created works and translated them into the exhibition's key visual and spatial vocabulary.
  3. Used bold color and graphic form to break lacquerware's conventional heavy, classical image, building an energetic, contemporary atmosphere in the gallery.
Lacquer art works on display at the Taiwan-Sweden International Craft Exchange Exhibition
Taiwan-Sweden co-created lacquer works on display
Extended banner series from the exhibition's key visual applications
Extended exhibition visual applications: banner series
Exhibition space narrative wall at the Taiwan-Sweden International Craft Exchange Exhibition
Exhibition space narrative wall

Outcome

The exhibition, themed "A Dialogue of Hands," fully presented the results of the Taiwan-Sweden lacquer art exchange, translating a cross-cultural creative process into a visual and spatial narrative audiences could genuinely feel, leaving a concrete record of this round of international exchange for Taiwanese craft.

Exhibition standees and lobby space at the Taiwan-Sweden International Craft Exchange Exhibition
Exhibition standees and lobby space
FAQ

Questions people ask
about projects like this.

How is an international craft exchange exhibition different from a typical showcase?

Beyond presenting results, it has to handle cross-cultural communication and how international audiences will read the work. Howdy Creative distills visual elements both collaborating sides can genuinely connect with, turning them into the exhibition's shared visual language.

How do you keep a traditional craft exhibition from feeling dated?

Howdy Creative looks for a contemporary entry point within the work itself, geometry or layering, for instance, and uses bold color and modern layout to break visitors' preconceptions of traditional craft as old-fashioned.

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