Chenglong Wetland's decade-long commitment to an environmental art festival has transformed the village into a treasure and united three generations.

The Chenglong Wetland International Art Festival, held for ten consecutive years, has made a name for Chenglong Village in Kouhu Township, Yunlin County, with visitor numbers reaching new highs every year. Ten years ago, Chenglong Village had given up hope and could see no possibility for the future; after ten years of exploration, art has unlocked the wetland's potential and restored the community's vitality.

However, the frequent and bustling activities also made residents reflect: "If we hold events merely for the sake of holding events, we only exhaust manpower and cohesion without actually helping the community." The Chenglong community and its companion organization, the Guanshu Education Foundation, resolved that the art festival should return to its core focus of "making community life better," return to community residents and producers, and rebuild consensus in order to further increase villagers' willingness to participate.

Whereas in the past residents always assisted artists in collecting creative materials, this year artists assisted residents in creating art from the themes of their own lives, and local farmers and fishermen were invited to build a market, in the hope of establishing Chenglong's local brand externally and channeling the popularity accumulated over ten years of the environmental art festival into the momentum for community industry development, actually improving the local environment.

From a harsh land at the mercy of wind and water to a scenic treasure

Chenglong Village is located in Kouhu Township, Yunlin, known as "the place at the head of the wind and the tail of the water," meaning "the good fertile water does not flow here, but when torrential rain and strong winds rage, this place must bear the brunt of the disaster." Therefore, this type of terrain generally belongs to areas with difficult living conditions.

Chenglong Wetland was originally a vast expanse of fertile farmland. In Republic of China year 75, Typhoon Wayne made landfall from the Zhuoshui River estuary and devastated the Yunlin coast. A massive seawater intrusion flooded nearly 100 hectares of fertile farmland in Chenglong Village. Because of land subsidence, the seawater could not drain away, and ultimately the land had to be abandoned for farming.

Having lost the land they depended on for survival, villagers were heartbroken and at one point even considered relocating and abandoning the village. However, relocation was not realistically viable. When villagers could see no hope, the Forestry Bureau assessed that the wetland nurtured rich ecology and in 2005 proposed the concept of "ecological subsidies," whereby the Forestry Bureau leased abandoned farmland from landowners as an ecological restoration area.

In 2009, the Forestry Bureau went further and invited the Guanshu Education Foundation to station itself in Chenglong Village to accompany residents, using Chenglong Wetland to develop environmental education and promote the practice of "satoumi living." The Forestry Bureau's pioneering move not only changed the circumstances of this fishing village but also gave rise to the later famous "Chenglong Wetland International Art Festival."

Ten years of environmental art action have allowed reconciliation with the land's wounds and also illuminated the future for the community.

Chenglong Wetland was once over 100 hectares of fertile farmland. In the hearts of older residents, losing the land to seawater intrusion from a wind disaster is a painful memory. They call the wetland "Bird Pit" - a place occupied by birds - though in reality they harbor grief and hostility toward the wetland.

In order to help residents reconcile with environmental disaster, the Guanshu Foundation began holding the Chenglong Wetland International Environmental Art Festival in 2010. Many domestic and international artists were invited to Chenglong Wetland to create works, re-exploring this "land that was once almost abandoned," and using outsiders' perspectives to help locals see the wetland anew.

The art festival made wetland ecology and fishing village life into creative materials for artists. Artists became good friends of Chenglong Village, and more people came to regard Chenglong Village as another home because they served as art festival volunteers, including Lin Peizhen, who now serves as project manager of the Community Development Association.

Lin Peizhen originally taught at a forest elementary school and served as an art festival volunteer in 2015. She said she had once roamed everywhere searching for herself, but after coming to Chenglong Village she found herself. Starting in 2017, she decided to settle in Chenglong Village to work for the community and accompany villagers as they continue moving forward.

Among the market activities, there are many partners like Lin Peizhen, who participated in the art festival as volunteers and then formed bonds in Chenglong Village, becoming fish that migrate back regularly ever since.

Children dress up as detectives to investigate their hometown's culture and ecology.

Along the route from the village to the market, many teenagers could be seen weaving in and out, directing traffic with ease and bustling about introducing stalls and assisting with the event.

It turns out that after the Guanshu Education Foundation stationed itself there in 2009, it cooperated with Chenglong Elementary School on environmental education to found the "Wetland Detective Club," letting children interview their elders at home and observe wetland ecology, step by step understanding the area's cultural and ecological resources. At the same time, it also let community elders "accompany children doing homework," creating a dialogue experience across three generations.

Step by step, they learn about common wetland shrimp, sand crabs, and migratory birds; the village's cash crops, such as pond-cultured hard clams, white shrimp, and milkfish, are also part of the curriculum. However, the Detective Club's recent joy is investigating the stay-behind phenomenon of black-faced spoonbills. Every year, a few young black-faced spoonbills that winter there remain in the wetland through summer and autumn, waiting for the next year to fly back north with the other adults.

The Wetland Detective Club is also called the "Chenglong Wetland Three-Generation Class," meaning that this wetland, which Grandpa calls "Bird Pit," was once "Grandpa's field," later became "Dad's fish pond," and now is "the place where I do nature research after finishing my homework." Through environmental education, it disturbs the community and also cultivates the next generation's sense of identity with the land and local spirit.

Chenglong's new generation: the greatest sense of achievement comes from introducing their own hometown and winning outsiders' thumbs-up!

These new forces in the community not only have a sense of identity with their hometown but are also full of imagination about the village's future. Even if they work or study away from home, they rush back to help whenever there is an activity. One young detective, Lin Youjie, believes that the greatest sense of achievement from participating in the Wetland Detective Club comes from "being able to introduce my hometown to outsiders and change outsiders' impression of Chenglong Village."

When he began introducing Chenglong Village to outsiders, they all looked puzzled: "Chenglong Village? Huh?" Because in outsiders' impressions, Kouhu Township is just a barren, declining small fishing village. But after he introduced the beauty of his hometown, especially the rich ecological environment of Chenglong Wetland, he would always win outsiders' heartfelt admiration, which became his proudest achievement!

Facing the future, he is very confident. Because he participated in the international art festival from a young age, he had the chance to spend time with foreign artists, is not afraid to speak English, and dares to speak on stage. Special research projects are no challenge for him either. Lin Youjie is full of imagination about the community. Even if he goes away to study in the future, he still wants to continue promoting Chenglong Village and still hopes to use his own strength to "make the place better"!

Returning to the original intention: not wanting the community to spin like a top and forget the purpose of holding events

Although Chenglong Village has held the international art festival since 2010, and because artists moved in and created works in combination with the landscape environment, its fame gradually increased, and the number of tourists visiting Chenglong Village each year also repeatedly hit new highs. But villagers were also thinking: "The art festival is so busy, who exactly is all this busyness for?"

"Frequent activities make the community spin like a top and produce results for the funding agencies, but if we hold events merely for the sake of holding events, we only exhaust manpower and cohesion without actually helping the community." Chenglong Community Association chairman Guo Mingyuan thought about how to make the activities a public affair that community residents can "feel," rather than a matter for only a few people.

Guo Mingyuan said that the wetland art festival over the past ten years has accumulated a group of outsiders who care about Chenglong Village's future, including artists and volunteer friends. In the village, it has also accumulated a group of young people, students' parents, and elders with a sense of identity and the ability to act, and this is the community's greatest asset.

The community and the foundation met and resolved that the art festival must transform. It should return to the core focus of "making community life better," return to community residents and producers, and rebuild consensus in order to raise participation rates, let everyone know that holding activities is for "the common good of the community," and thereby increase villagers' willingness to participate voluntarily and on an unpaid basis.

The art festival transforms into a community environmental art market, showcasing industrial potential.

This year, the Chenglong community and the Guanshu Foundation decided to make the art festival more deeply localized. On 11/16 and 17, they held a community environmental art market at Chenglong Wetland to present this year's artistic creations, while also inviting local producers, artists, and volunteers to set up stalls and showcase the area's industrial potential.

This year's creative theme is recycled clothing. Paired with residents' weaving skills, artists and volunteers worked together to produce woven artworks as the main works in the joint results exhibition.

The market was the first attempt by the community and the Guanshu Foundation. The area around Chenglong Wetland is still a production area with many aquaculture fish ponds. Most Chenglong residents make their living mainly by polyculture of hard clams with white shrimp and milkfish. This time the association also arranged production-site interaction experiences, actually going into the fish ponds to feel for hard clams and getting close to wetland ecology for observation.