National Palace Museum joins Taichung World Flora Expo

The world-famous Jadeite Cabbage
comes to Taichung

Words and photos provided by Information Bureau of Taichung City Government
Translated by Anna Yang

The 2018 Taichung World Flora Expo is due to welcome yet another very honored guest–the National Palace Museum’s renowned Jadeite Cabbage. This favorite museum sculpture, as well as a smaller Qing Dynasty jadeite cabbage will be on display for half a year at the Houli Horse Ranch Flora Expo site’s National Palace Museum New Media Gallery. This marks the first time that the smaller jadeite artwork has been displayed outside of a museum setting, as well as the longest outside exhibition of this piece.
To unveil this cooperation with the 2018 Taichung World Flora Exposition, the National Palace Museum held a press conference with Taichung City Mayor Lin Chia-lung and other Taichung City Government representatives at the Taipei museum, where the mayor and National Palace Museum Director Chen Chi-nan promoted the popular relics and their visit to Taichung. The Smaller Jadeite Cabbage will be displayed in Houli Horse Ranch’s National Palace Museum New Media Gallery with other museum pieces and Taichung’s locally-grown flowers. The mayor noted that the exposition would showcase more than just flowers and plants, but also cultural relics provided by National Palace Museum, as part of its mission of spotlighting the beauty of Taiwan to the world. Director Chen said that this represented yet another cooperation with a national event to promote the museum’s collection globally following a similar collaboration with the Taipei Universiade.
The Jadeite Cabbage is arguably the museum’s best-known treasure and is by its nature also a relic with agricultural symbolism. In keeping with Taichung Flora Expo’s theme of “Rediscovering Green, Nature and People”, the cabbage can also help remind visitors of this land and its agricultural riches.
In addition to this exhibit, the Flora Expo will also hold a series of “In Praise of Flowers” exhibitions at four major art museums: National Palace Museum, Tokyo Fuji Art Museum, Taichung’s National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, and Chimei Museum in Tainan. Over 150 flower-related artworks will be displayed in these exhibitions, designed to expand on the Expo’s theme and cultural impact via different museums.
The National Palace Museum specifically noted that in response to the 2018 Taichung World Flora Expo, the museum’s northern and southern branches will hold a series of flower-themed exhibitions from October. Besides the Jadeite Cabbage and Smaller Jadeite Cabbage displays at the Houli Horse Ranch’s National Palace Museum New Media Gallery, another museum collection work, the Jadeite Cabbage-Hua Cha, will also be on display at the southern branch.
With the concurrent displays of the Jadeite Cabbage and Smaller Jadeite Cabbage in Taichung and the Jadeite Cabbage-Hua Cha at the museum’s southern branch, a special “Southern Branch of National Palace Museum and Taichung Flora Expo” discount ticket is being promoted. This will allow Taichung residents to visit the southern branch for free from October to the end of the Flora Expo.
Taichung Flora Expo will now draw crowds to both Taichung and Chiayi, as this event also encourages visitors to travel to the Southern Branch of National Palace Museum’s exhibitions of flowers and cultural relics.