Education

The Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, the only multi-purpose museum located in southern Taiwan, shoulders the tremendous responsibility of art education and its promotion since its opening. When planning its programs and activities, the museum always has its focus on the following principles:

1. Integrating diversified arts applications into activities so as to give visitors more comprehensive experiences about the exhibitions and the beauty of arts;
2. Encouraging people in southern Taiwan to participate in and learn proactively from art activities;
3. Integrating and cultivating arts resources in the southern part of Taiwan, such as the forces of volunteers, teachers and art workers, to spread the concept of art education to every household and community islandwide;
4. Designing the activities based on the concept of cultural diversity and cross-disciplinary teachings to produce inspiring, creative and interactive educational activities, exhibitions and learning materials which can better serve the goal of lifelong learning;
5. Developing channels of multi-media and interactive distance learning for education at different levels.

During the past ten years, we have launched a series of educational activities, such as the two to three large-scale teacher training camps each year along with the publication of manuals for the teachers. We also cooperated with local elementary schools to build up exhibition walls and circulated our exhibition contents among them to fulfill the goal of resource reuse. The Museum also held special exhibitions and collection exhibitions, provided a variety of tour guiding services within the museum and completed the establishment of art resource classrooms. In addition, we set up the art library and established a variety of channels for citizens to acquire information about the latest activities of the museum. To further promote art education in communities, we recruited Art Ambassadors to bring arts to every household, recruited and trained voluntary workers who are enthusiastic about arts, and explored every possibility of forging cooperation ties with the communities and finding new spaces for exhibitions and performances in the city.

In 2001 and 2002, with experiences accumulated from continuous experiments, the Museum started the establishment of learning walls with the hope that viewers could appreciate the beauty of arts through other senses than the eyes. Through seeing, hearing, touching, smelling and tasting, viewers could learn how to appreciate the beauty of works beyond their appearances. To explore the museum's educational functions and provide viewers with more diverse methods of art appreciation, we decided to include in our exhibitions the “Learning Walls” and “Learning Spaces” whose contents and arrangement change according to the theme and focus of each exhibition in order to encourage viewers integrate arts with daily experiences and explore the possibility of appreciation arts with other senses than seeing.

Based on the foundation laid during the previous years, the Museum is moving to the second stage of its work this year. In this stage, we are going to establish the Museum of Fine Arts for Children, the first of its kind in Taiwan, especially for children aged two to twelve, in order to start art education for citizens at young ages. The Museum of Fine Arts for Children will provide mostly exhibition spaces which are designed to encourage kids to learn through the five senses and experience arts through games and interaction with artworks so that they can learn more enjoyably and actively. In the future, the exhibition contents and education focus of the Museum of Fine Arts for Children will also echo with those of the Museum to deliver more comprehensive art education for both children and adults.

I. Art Space in the Community and the Mobile Museums

Since its establishment, the Museum has been cooperating with private museums, art galleries or art spaces to hold joint exhibitions during its anniversaries so as to increase their exposure in local areas. Free brochures about art information are also given out. All these activities and efforts have obtained great support from private organizations and local residents.

After its establishment in 2003, the Bureau of Cultural Affairs of Kaohsiung City Government started the project of “Mobile Museums” of which the objective is to discover and integrate more spaces in Kaohsiung for art and cultural activities, such as sidewalks, hospitals, restaurants and hypermarkets, in which artists can display their works or deliver performances. Through this project, resources for art and cultural development can be pooled from local artists and organizations to make arts a natural part of life in this city and help Kaohsiung establish itself as a city of beauty and arts. In 2003 alone, there were totally 23 exhibitions in seven locations outside the museum, including the Reception Room in Kaohsiung City Government, Kaohsiung City Council, Shihchuan Store of Carrefour, Kaohsiung Municipal United Hospital (Tatung Area and Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts Area), the Reception Room of Uni Air in Kaohsiung International Airport and the Royal Lees Hotel.

II. Integration with Art Education at School

To promote the integration of art education of the Museum with that at school, we have worked with the “Campus Art Expressway ” launched by the Kaohsiung Municipal Chiachang Elementary School since 2000. The museum provided the school with its exhibition resources after the end of the exhibitions for display or teaching purposes on campus. Up to now, there have been seven exhibitions at the Chiachang Elementary School, including “Exhibition of Musee de l'Orangerie in France held at Chiachang Elementary School ,” “Li Kojan Centurial Arts Exhibition,” “Special Exhibition of New Year Prints,” “Rembrandt's Arts Exhibition,” “Napoleon Special Exhibition,” “the Tang Dynasty Heritage Exhibition” and the “Exhibition of Chiang Chaoshen's Calligraphy Works and Paintings” in May, 2003. These exhibitions were highly acclaimed by residents from local communities and students' parents. The goal of the Chiachang Elementary School to build a campus of arts fits well with ours to deliver the educational functions with our exhibition resources. The successful cooperation between the Museum and the Chiachang Elementary School symbolizes as a substantial achievement of our efforts to integrate museum education and school education.

III. Opportunities of Internships and Exchanges

Students from colleges, universities and graduate institutes are provided with internship opportunities every summer and winter vacation so as to have a deeper understanding about how the KMFA operates and thus forge a long-term relationship with the Museum. We have a sound system of internships, such as the single application channel for applying for internships and adviser assignment for interns. We also provide courses of arts and services for interns so that they can participate more directly in art activities and also gain first-hand experiences from service work.

For example, the two International Container Arts Festivals offered good opportunities for students from the Art Department of National Kaohsiung Normal University and the Wenzao Ursuline College of Languages to provide their assistance in creation and translation by applying what they had learned at school. Their services during the two festivals were highly praised by artists from home and abroad.

IV. The Award-winning Team of Voluntary Workers

The management and use of voluntary workers is one of our major characteristics. The self-management among voluntary workers has won the Museum many awards. For example, our team of voluntary workers is honored with the Golden Glow Award this year. Meanwhile, each of our voluntary workers is also highly recognized for his/her hard work. For example, our senior voluntary worker, Fu Hui-ru, obtained the Golden Glow Award for Best Voluntary Worker in Kaohsiung City and also the Special Award for Outstanding Voluntary Worker from the Council for Cultural Affairs in 2003. Fu was the second receiver of this award since its establishment and, therefore, the news of her winning this award was greeted by all museum staff with joy and pride. In addition, Ke Yu-ying, another voluntary worker of ours, also received the Golden Award from the Council for Cultural Affairs. Up to the end of 2003, our voluntary workers have garnered one Special Award, three Golden Awards, three Silver Awards and seven Bronze Awards from the Council for Cultural Affairs. This is truly some achievement for us to take pride in. Preparing for the exhibition of collections of the National Palace Museum at the end of this year, we have recruited 32 new voluntary tour guides this year, increasing the number of voluntary guides to 62.

V. Systematic and Continuous Trainings for Tour Guides and Diverse Tour Guiding Services

In order to enhance the quality of its tour guiding and to meet the needs of visitors, the Museum would invite curators, scholars, and artists at home and abroad to deliver lectures and training courses on the topics of exhibitions or to host study clubs in order to enhance the quality of tour guiding and services. There were totally 51 sessions of such activities in 2003 (112 hours in total) with an average of 50 voluntary tour guides participating in each session. (Please refer to the following table for more information about each session.)

To encourage learning and museum visiting among residents in southern Taiwan, we provide “Regular Tour Express” every Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday which includes voice tour-guiding and audio-visual tour-guiding for special exhibitions. We also accept requests from citizens for guiding services during other periods of time. If citizens can not come to the museum in person, they can listen to the program, “Arts Are All around You,” both on FM 94.3 and AM1089, provided by the Kaohsiung Broadcasting Station to enjoy their museum tours on the air. The touring services are very popular among our visitors. Take the requests for museum tours as an example. Since its opening in June 1994 to December 2003, the museum has accepted requests from 4,960 groups with 333,527 participants in total. In 2003 alone, 230 groups with 20,064 members make reservations for museum tours.

Type of Tour-guiding Services

1. Voice Tour Guiding System:

Information about important works, based on the exhibition themes and contents, is recorded on tape. Visitors need to deposit their I.D. cards to borrow the voice tour guiding systems from the educational service center in the museum.Through this “personal tour guide” mechanism, each visitor can know more about how to appreciate arts.

2.   Regular Tour Express:

It is the regular tour guiding service provided by the Museum, starting from the Educational Service Center at 2 p.m. every Wednesday and Saturday and 10:30 a.m. every Sunday. Reservations are not required and there is no limitation of number of members. Visitors can join or leave the tour any time if necessary.

3. Request for Tour-guiding Services: In order to provide services for groups from schools, public and private organizations at all levels and also to further exert the educational functions of the Museum, we also provide tour-guiding services in English, Japanese, Mandarin and Taiwanese. Visitors can make reservations in advance when necessary.

4. On-air Tour-guiding: The radio program, Arts are all around you , is produced together by the Museum and the Kaohsiung Broadcasting Station. It is broadcasted on both FM 94.3 and AM 1089 at 11 a.m. every Saturday, allowing the Museum and citizens to have interactions despite limitations of time and space.

VI. Special Services for Communities: Art Ambassadors—Bringing Arts to the Household

The Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts is characterized by its “Art Ambassadors--Bringing Art to the Household" program which extends the art education to the communities and progressively realizes the goals of providing more comprehensive and detailed information about arts. After the exhibition in 1996, “ l'Age d'or de l'impressionnisme-Chefs-d'?uvre du Musee d'Orsay ,” the Museum invited senior voluntary tour guides, art teachers in Kaohsiung Area, artists and art workers to form a troop of “Art Ambassadors” who visited local communities to promote contents and knowledge of our special exhibitions and encourage residents to use the resources of the Museum and to be more engaged the art education.

Since its opening, the Museum has held the following nine special exhibitions: “ l'Age d'or de l'impressionnisme-Chefs-d'?uvre du Musee d'Orsay,” “Wisdom and Compassion: the Sacred Art of Tibet,” “Legends of Women: Western Paintings and Sculptures,” “ Exhibition of Musee de l'Orangerie in France,” “The World of Tangri Qaghan: Heritage of the Tang Dynasty,” “King of the Kings: Napoleon,” “ Great Qing Dynasty － Art of the High Qing from the Collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing,” “ Alphonse Mucha - Splendor of Art Nouveau,” and “ The Splendors of the East — The Collections of the National Palace Museum. ”  

Approximately 40,000 citizens visited the two exhibitions in 2003, “Great Qing Dynasty － Art of the High Qing from the Collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing,” and “ The Splendors of the East — The Collections of the National Palace Museum, ” extending art appreciation far and wide into schools , communities, and organizations and integrating arts into their daily life.

VII. Suitable Space for Art Teaching: Art Resource Classroom

The art resource classrooms of the museum are designed with the focus mainly on trainings of techniques and learning of art appreciation. In the classrooms, visitors can have hands-on experiences of art creations. Currently there are classrooms for creation of sculptures and printmaking and they are open for reservations by users from schools, communities and organizations. The classrooms are also open for families on Saturday afternoons so that the public can utilize the resources of the Museum more effectively. The classrooms are also equipped with exhibition billboards and teaching aids related to certain themes in order to create a more lively environment for art teaching and distinguish our art education from that at school.

There were 122 reservations made by totally 3,835 users from schools, communities, and organizations in 2003. The number of users who did make reservations was 8,211 and the number of parents and children using the classrooms reached 362. In other words, there were totally 12,408 visitors to these classrooms. The teaching aids and billboards in these classrooms along with the tour guiding services can help visitors better understand and experience the pleasure of art creation. The classrooms are highly popular among schools and many other organizations.

VIII. Easy but Informative Lectures and Seminars on Arts and Art Education in Life

In the lectures on certain exhibitions, the creating artists of the exhibited works were often invited to talk to the citizens directly and to share their stories and experiences when creating the works so that citizens can know more about the works. The lectures and seminars allow participating citizens to develop aesthetic experiences through approaches both traditional and creative. These activities are usually held on Sunday afternoons in the lecture hall at the basement of the Museum. In addition, a series of activities on art education in life are also held to promote the integration of art and life. In these activities, professionals and experts would be invited to discuss together with participating citizens about arts and aesthetics in life. The following table provides further information about each of these lectures and seminar held by the Museum.

IX. Films about Arts

The Museum plays films which introduce collections of major museums around the globe, important artists in Eastern and Western civilizations, or art movements and theories at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. every Saturday and Sunday in the B1 auditorium, a comfortable place for families and small groups to enjoy film watching and discussion.

X. Provision of Information about Art Activities

1. Establishment of Art Library

The library is a reference room of art data and documents, including 20, 123 books and periodicals written in Chinese and foreign languages, 1,263 videotapes on arts and 1,007 cassettes. There is another display area of reference books related to special exhibitions for further research and studies. Furthermore, the automatic system of the library allows citizens to search for books on-line by clicking on the “Library Book Search” button on the Museum's homepage and then entering their queries.

2. The Computerized Tour Guides

Computers with touch screens are installed in the Educational Service Center and visitors can use the computers to find out information about our facilities of the Museum as well as the exhibitions and activities each month. Computers of this system are also installed in the airport and libraries in Kaohsiung to provide updates about activities of the Museum.

3. Active Distribution of Information about Art Activities

In addition to sending information about our activities through the mass media, the KMFA also actively distributes information about the latest activities to schools, cultural and educational organizations, overseas governmental offices, bookstores, the airport, train and bus stations and also to 5,000 taxi drivers. The monthly periodical of the Museum and the seasonal schedule of the art activities are also given out to the public for free.

4. Use of the Internet