Recoding a Century of Faith: Visual Translation for the Medicine Lots Exhibition
Howdy Creative curated "Sincere Faith Heals" (心誠則靈), a medicine-lots (藥籤) exhibition for NYCU, translating a complex folk medicine and religious tradition into a contemporary visual and interactive experience that bridges traditional belief and today's audience.
Challenge
Medicine lots carry deep threads of Taiwanese faith, folk medicine, and history, but their intricate rituals and dense texts are hard for a modern audience, especially younger visitors, to grasp. The challenge was freeing this piece of intangible cultural heritage from an academic-research framework without lapsing into lecturing, so visitors would actually want to step closer, engage, and connect with it.
Goal
The goal went beyond knowledge transfer to recreating the cultural experience itself. The plan was to build an immersive experience that deconstructed the seemingly mysterious ritual of "drawing a medicine lot" into steps visitors could physically take part in, letting them naturally grasp the cultural meaning of medicine lots as they moved through the show, while sparking reflection on the space between tradition and modernity, faith and science.
Approach
- Made "ritual as experience design" the curatorial core, translating the traditional steps of drawing a lot into nodes along the visitor's path through the show.
- Turned "diagnosis" and "casting divination blocks" into physical floor markers and interactive installations, so visitors engage with their bodies rather than only reading text.
- Used contemporary colors like fluorescent pink and bright purple against traditional imagery like door gods and lot-poems, creating an aesthetic that's deliberately dissonant yet coherent.
- Displayed herbal medicine in beakers and test tubes, using scientific symbols to open a dialogue between faith and science within the exhibition's narrative.
Outcome
"Sincere Faith Heals" opened on schedule, translating the steps of drawing a medicine lot into a walkable exhibition path visitors could physically take part in, letting them grasp the faith and medical context behind medicine lots through interaction, and leaving NYCU's cultural curation work a record of bridging tradition and the contemporary.
Questions people ask
about projects like this.
How do you get younger audiences to engage with a folk culture exhibition?
Howdy Creative breaks the ritual down into physical, participatory nodes, turning steps like diagnosis and casting divination blocks into floor markers and interactive installations, so visitors understand through their bodies rather than only reading.
Can a traditional faith exhibition use contemporary color palettes?
Yes. Howdy Creative often pairs bold, contemporary colors against traditional symbols in this kind of project. As long as the core narrative stays faithful to the cultural context, a striking visual language can actually make the topic easier for audiences to engage with.
Related links
- 國立陽明交通大學藝文中心展覽主辦單位官網
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