Written by Su-Mei Lo. This article illustrates how collaborative curatorial practice transforms museums from static repositories into dynamic arenas of indigenous recovery and knowledge translation. By engaging Amis communities from ’Atolan to Keelung, these projects navigate sociopolitical friction and dismantle the rigid dualism separating ancestral hometowns from urban migrant spaces.
Written by Michel Lee. This article explores “Ki cacepeliw,” a three-year collaborative project between Sweden’s National Museums of World Culture, the National Taiwan Museum, and the Southern Paiwan community of Shizi Township. By centring on the century-old Nakahara collection at Stockholm’s Museum of Ethnography, the initiative embraces shared stewardship to reconnect descendants with their heritage. Culminating in a landmark 2025–2026 homecoming exhibition, the collaboration has breathed new life into Paiwan cultural identity, inspiring local artisans to revive and recreate long-lost traditional crafts and instruments.
Written by Tzu-Ning Li. Shifting from studying Indigenous peoples to actively collaborating with them, museums have initiated emotionally charged “objects returning home” projects. The author demonstrates that ancestral artefacts are not passive specimens but active extensions of kinship and spirit. Ultimately, collaboration is framed as a slow, relational practice that challenges institutional authority and transforms museums into spaces for dynamic dialogue and historical justice.
Written by Shao-Ji Yao. This article explores the provenance and 150-year history of Taiwan’s Indigenous ethnographic collections at the Ethnological Museum in Berlin. Shaped by director Adolf Bastian’s universal archival ambitions, these artefacts span the period from late nineteenth-century colonial encounters to post-WWII acquisitions. The author details ongoing collaborative efforts to bring these historic items back to Taipei for a landmark transnational exhibition at the National Taiwan Museum in 2027.
Written by Yian Chen. This article describes the 2025 exhibition Formosa Orchids Blossom, a collaborative project between Taipei’s National Museum of History and the University of Tokyo. It explores how the orchid transcends its role as a simple flower to serve as a complex cultural lens in Taiwan. By weaving together Japanese botanical science, traditional Chinese literati art, and the sacred indigenous cosmology of the Tsou people, the interdisciplinary exhibition deconstructs rigid national narratives, modelling a decolonised, transnational approach to modern museum practice.
Written by Isis M. Lee. A landmark exhibition in Prague displays 100 masterpieces from Taiwan’s National Palace Museum — yet Taiwan itself disappears from the story. This erasure reveals how authoritarian pressure increasingly shapes cultural spaces far beyond China’s borders.
