Xiaochi Great Earth: Wind of Life Festival

Water is the origin of life.
In 2024, the Cultural Affairs Bureau launched the first Wind of Life Festival, aiming to integrate the Bureau’s diverse cultural initiatives while exploring new possibilities for deepening community participation in local placemaking. Using the Five Elements as the conceptual departure point, this year’s theme centers on “Water.” Through the imagery of rippling waves, mirrored reflections, and everyday water-related stories, the festival gathers the energy of different projects and communities in Xiaochi Village.
Water rises from the sea, becomes rain, and returns to the earth. For generations, the people of Xiaochi have drawn water from village wells, sustaining life across time. Beneath the village roads flows a small stream that leads toward the intertidal zone shared with neighboring Chikan Village—locally known as Chikanzai Sea.
This exhibition takes “water” as its core metaphor and expands it into four modes of interaction with the community:
exploring pathways through the settlement, transforming everyday spaces into non-traditional exhibition sites, holding workshops rooted in local daily craft practices, and presenting performance-based artistic outcomes. Here, water is no longer merely a natural element, but a fluid connection—one that guides people back to an intimate, sensory dialogue with the land.
Wind of Life Festival 2025 flows from hydrological landscapes to living cultural currents and community pathways, transforming Xiaochi Village into an open-air museum resonating with nature.