Hualien International Stone Sculpture Festival

Hualien Stone Press
the exhibition of stone industry development and daily application

Hualien County Stone Sculpture Museum(No.6,Wenfu Road, Hualien City).
Time/Date：9:00-17:00, September 27 to December 13,Closed on Monday.
Opening：September 27 at 2 pm.

Hualien possesses 80% of the stone resources in Taiwan, while in its heyday, its processing equipment and production capacity even ranked second in the world, only inferior to Italy, which ranks first. The daily life in Hualien is closely intertwined with industry, commerce and stone. In urban areas, you can often see pedestrian walks made of leftover slabs, bus shelters with creative stone, walls with stone mosaic tiles, and public art of stone sculptures within the county…., and so on.

Since Japanese occupation days, the stone industry in Hualien has gradually developed into three major industries: stone material, stone sculpture and stone appreciation. There have been factories of indoor and outdoor decoration, daily stone processing plants, stone art merchants, stone carving artist studios, etc. scattered between Hualien industrial areas and towns. Accumulating over a long period of time, the life and emotions of Hualien residents have precipitated the tone of "symbiosis with stone."

The exhibition is started with the ideas of “flowing time”, so we make the theme as “Hualien Stone Press”, hoping to pan out in the long river of time whatever belongs to the pulsation of stone industry development in Hualien. It is expected that the audience can understand how the material of “quarry” deeply affects the regional development of Hualien from the perspectives of history, industry, humanities and aesthetics; as well as reflect on “how did Hualien become Hualien?” The exhibition content consists of three aspects: "Stone Development History in Hualien", "Stone Industry and Life Application" and "Cultural Creative Design and Art", hoping not only make the public to be able to read precious literature data, videos and photos, but also display early stone art goods, such as the nostalgic objects: stone lanterns, laying lions, stone ashtrays, stone troughs, fruit bowls, carvings of Pìxiu(Chinese mythic wild animal) and dog-model incense burners. Besides, there are also newly designed products made by marginal materials, such as furniture, clocks, incense devices, stationery and so on. Through displaying in such an exhibition hall with pleasant situational atmosphere, the public can feel the beauty of the interlaced time and space of the old and the new.