Yilan Is a Museum: Tourism Draws the Eye, Extending a Museum Cluster of Local Knowledge

Text / Chang Ya-yun

(Continued from the previous article) At the end of 2018, as Yilan's community-building movement approached its 25th year, the Yilan County Government specially organized a cross-year exhibition, "Good Home in Yilan - 2018 Yilan Community Building Achievement Exhibition." The venue for this exhibition was no longer the Cultural Affairs Bureau, but the Lanyang Museum. Through a half-year special exhibition, featuring content such as the trajectory of Yilan community building, community panoramas, community calendars, the Community Building 3.0 plan, and community video traces, it hoped to convey the experience of Yilan people's good-homeland action.

Why was the trajectory of Yilan's community building presented at the Lanyang Museum? Because the LAM Family and the Lanyang Museum share a symbiotic relationship. During the planning and construction of the Lanyang Museum, it also made its voice heard in Yilan's villages and communities through the LAM Family network, including museum visits, community mini-trips linking museum sites, museum-in-school programs, seminars and exchange meetings, and more. Whether for rooting education within the county or conveying the charm of Yilan people to the outside world, it broadcasts the homeland dream that "Yilan is a museum."

The Lanyang Museum's curatorial ambition also once again explains that "integration" has become an internalized value for Yilan people, and the Lanyang Museum still has a necessary role in promoting local knowledge and the Yilan Great Land Museum movement. As its organizational mission states, "Yilan is a museum, and LAM is the window for knowing this museum."

Writing "Yilan Is a Museum" into the county governance blueprint

"Yilan Is a Museum" is not merely the wishful thinking of cultural workers; it has a foundation from discourse to execution. Lu Li-cheng states that back then, Magistrate Liu Shou-cheng generously wrote "Yilan Is a Museum" into the county governance blueprint, and all bureaus and departments reached a consensus, incorporating tourism and education into it, including the overall museum construction currently being implemented in Yilan County, which also uses this concept: Yilan is a museum suitable for living, learning, and traveling. The Environmental Protection Bureau and the Education Department promote "suitable for learning," the Tourism Bureau mainly promotes "suitable for traveling," while the Lanyang Museum must comprehensively attend to all aspects of living, learning, and traveling.

From drafting, writing, and executing the Lanyang Museum and LAM Family plans, 18 years have now passed. Lu Li-cheng believes that gradual revision is also needed. "The key is how to operate 'Yilan Is a Museum.' Now there must be people to think about it, people to change it, and people to practice it."

Why does Taiwan need a museum movement?

As a senior researcher who has participated in Taiwan's museum movement for many years, what can museums tell everyone? Lu Li-cheng states that museums can reflect on the past to understand the future; it is that simple. He hopes Taiwanese people can reflect on the past to understand the future and think about the future of Taiwanese people. Similarly, the journey of dedicating himself to Yilan's local museum movement is also about knowing why today is the way it is and how future hope should be created.

Although Lu Li-cheng has retired from the position of director of the National Museum of Taiwan History, he remains like a missionary of the museum movement, sharing with more community residents the various possibilities that local and museum movements can spark. In his interactions with his hometown Yilan, his unchanging original intention always comes from his most fundamental belief: "The hometown is a magical place for building dreams." (Series end)

Yilan is a museum

is a concept

is an imagination

is a working hypothesis

is a working goal

is a work plan

is a dream of building a hometown homeland

-- Lu Li-cheng

Yilan Is a Museum 02"Besides the Lanyang Museum, the "LAM Family" that is even more worth knowing