The opening ceremony for the 2nd Romantic Route 3 Arts Festival was held on the evening of June 22 at Taipei's Huashan Theater. Yiong Con-ziin, Minister of the Hakka Affairs Council (HAC), President Tsai Ing-wen, Vice Premier Cheng Wen-tsan, and representatives from Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Miaoli, and Taichung all attended the event. Together, they pressed the horn on the steering wheel, symbolizing the beginning of this highway journey and officially announcing the opening of the 2nd Romantic Route 3 Arts Festival across Taipei, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Miaoli, and Taichung on June 24.
President Tsai remarked how this is the second edition of the Arts Festival. With a debut scheduled for August in Taoyuan, the Hakka policy is advancing step by step, leveraging the government's strength and resources to pass down the Hakka culture, language, and traditions. The goal is to encourage people to speak Hakka in everyday life once again, incentivize young people to move to Hakka villages, and turn Provincial Highway 3 from a "road away from home" to a "road back home".
Minister Yiong stated that this year's Arts Festival is very different from its first edition. In addition to land art by artists from different countries, design artists were also invited to apply their profession to daily life along Provincial Highway 3, establishing new ways to converse with its Hakka residents. The most touching art piece this year is that by Ukrainian artist Zhanna Kadyrova, who picked up stones and used them to build the shapes of bread. This also brings to mind the Hakka saying, "eating stones and living next to water", demonstrating the Hakka tenacity and resilience.
The curatorial theme of the 2nd Romantic Route 3 Arts Festival is "Falabidbog". The Arts Festival encompasses five cities and counties across 150 kilometers and 65 days, with 91 artworks on display, 7 countries invited for participation, 55 Taiwanese and foreign artists conducting residencies in Hakka villages, 21 design teams studying localities, more than 65 partnering local restaurants, over 35 new Hakka flavors produced, and more than 100 cultural co-creation experience activities. It strives to display facets of Hakka culture ignored by tradition, unearthing infinite possibilities in terms of Hakka ideas, identities, and sights through exploration of opposites like experimentation and reality, harmony and collision, and pop and classic.
