From fish trap to installation: The bamboo weaving wonders of Cheng-Tsung Feng
Guest edited by Corinne Julius
“So usually I'm catching people as fish,” explains Cheng Tsung Feng, of his bamboo and rattan installations, based on traditional Taiwanese fish traps. “We follow traditional fishermen sometimes they will make very big (fish traps,) and sometimes they will be very small. The material will change. It depends on the different kinds of river and different kinds of fish.” Feng likes to apply this principle to his installations, seeing each location like a river “I see the architecture as a river. So what kind of fish trap do we need to create for this kind of river and what kind of fish I'm going to catch in it?”
Image: Fish Trap House, Cheng Tsung Feng. Image above: Fish Trap House IV Houli.
In this case ‘the river’ is the Coronet Theatre in Notting Hill London, where as part of the Taiwan Festival, London’s first major celebration of Taiwanese contemporary arts and culture, he has created 3 installations. Outside hovering above the facade is a series of rings of bamboo and rattan, inside the rotunda of the foyer, is a huge circular fish trap that visitors can wander around and back stage is a cascade of bamboo strips, inside which are displayed models of many of Feng’s fish trap houses.
All his work depends on a deep understanding of specific traditional crafts. He strives to investigate the taken-for-granted but it’s not just a modern twist he hopes to impart. His intention is to convey cultural messages and forgotten stories. Whilst he adapts traditional methods he is no Luddite, combining historical methods with modern technological processes.
Image: Taiwanese Festival, Cheng-Tsung Feng, 12-27 April 2024.
All this seem very far removed from Cheng Tsung Feng’s training as an Industrial designer. During his MA at the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, where he was always top of the class, he became very disillusioned with the straight jacket of industrial design. “I just felt less cool, I just got lost. So I didn't graduate I just left.” This was despite the pleas of his supervisor.
Feng cast his net widely and began looking at traditional crafts and materials, especially bamboo. “I found these bamboo craftsman. I saw some of them making things like chairs. The process is so beautiful.” He began to appreciate everyday objects and everyday techniques and started trying to see how they could be used in a new way. “I found my love I'm really lucky, but the next question was how can I live with less?” In other words how to make a living from such a disrespected field.
Image: Taiwanese Festival, Cheng-Tsung Feng, 12-27 April 2024.
He started by doing intense research into process. “I think the most interesting part was (what was) hiding in the process. So I tried to find some special part in the process and based on that I created something new.” For Feng seeing, but above all handling the bamboo was key, it couldn’t be done by watching a video. “In a YouTube video, you don't know the material feeling in your hands. You don't know the strength and the power in your hand when you cannot smell anything. It’s just like how to learn a dance, you need to join in, you need to use your body to absorb the information. One tradition of how to make a steamer or a small chair is delivered by many, many generations of people. Every generation changes things a little bit to make it more simple, perfecting the process. It's not just one generation that can make. It needs 10 or 20 generations. I can feel the power of time,” explains Feng. “I feel the language of the material, the process and the culture.”
A major part of his concept is to get people to value everyday materials, which are generally considered disposable. Bamboo for example is synonymous with chopsticks and the challenge was to give it and the processes that transform it into functional items, some preciousness. He is aware that bamboo fish traps signify man being in harmonious coexistence with nature, but despite the ecological credentials of bamboo, the environmental issues are not his principle focus, which is largely cultural.
Image: Dragon Palace Nantou, Cheng Tsung Feng.
His projects, which use architectural techniques to construct large-scale installation art, include a number of performance spaces such as the Bamboo Theatre at the Horse Stone Park (2024) and The Nesting Plan (2019) in Nantou. The latter made of Japanese cedar, woven with rope. Others have a similar performance based feel like his Temple:Flame Tree, Tainan, (2024) or as in The Rite of the Lobster (2023) a bamboo installation that embodies organic patterns of marine life and segments of crustaceans, where performers actually weave the work.
Feng has done a number of projects using canvas-, (a plastic one usually used for outdoor advertising,) to create canvas and stitch pagodas for several lighting festivals, including Sailing Castle for HBO (2019) and Sailing Castle Ren’ai (2023.) All his installations create interesting shadows, with lighting (natural or artificial,) being an important part of the project.
Image: Mushroom Forest, Cheng Tsung Feng.
All his studio members are either architects or industrial designers by training. Intriguingly he says “When I was student, traditional craft no one cared. They always wanted to find some new material and use a 3d printer. But, now it’s half and half. What people ask now is how to combine traditional with the new.” That is part of the studio’s speciality, based on a deep understanding of the traditional processes. Feng designs, sketching and then making bamboo models, before moving to computer to expand upon the design.
Originally Feng made smaller, commercial objects but these days his work is on a large scale. Many of his projects are now for luxury brands, such as Hermes, Cartier, Loewe, Bottega Veneta, The Balvenie, Apple, Aesop, Nike, The Ritz-Carlton, HBO and Kvadrat, who see his use of traditional craft as adding strength to their own.
Image: Taiwanese Festival, Cheng-Tsung Feng, 12-27 April 2024.
Cheng Tsung Feng’s work is very beautiful. It is good to be able to see it in the UK, but at the Coronet it is rather cramped and sadly doesn’t offer the full experience. After London, Feng is working on a major project in Taiwan, followed by one in Singapore. He’s currently working on a private lobby installation that looks like a landscape made of wool and carpet. “I want to do something special and very, very subjective. But in my design education process, subjective was not a not a good thing.” That’s a paradigm he has managed to reject and craft has given him that freedom. “I have,” he says, “a list of so many kind of traditional craft methods that I still want to learn and know and then use them.”
Taiwan Festival: Cheng Tsung FENG is on show at The Coronet Theatre,103 Notting Hill Gate, London W11 3LB, UK until 27 April 2024.
“So usually I'm catching people as fish,” explains Cheng Tsung Feng, of his bamboo and rattan installations, based on traditional Taiwanese fish traps. “We follow traditional fishermen sometimes they will make very big (fish traps,) and sometimes they will be very small. The material will change. It depends on the different kinds of river and different kinds of fish.” Feng likes to apply this principle to his installations, seeing each location like a river “I see the architecture as a river. So what kind of fish trap do we need to create for this kind of river and what kind of fish I'm going to catch in it?”
In this case ‘the river’ is the Coronet Theatre in Notting Hill London, where as part of the Taiwan Festival, London’s first major celebration of Taiwanese contemporary arts and culture, he has created 3 installations. Outside hovering above the facade is a series of rings of bamboo and rattan, inside the rotunda of the foyer, is a huge circular fish trap that visitors can wander around and back stage is a cascade of bamboo strips, inside which are displayed models of many of Feng’s fish trap houses.
All his work depends on a deep understanding of specific traditional crafts. He strives to investigate the taken-for-granted but it’s not just a modern twist he hopes to impart. His intention is to convey cultural messages and forgotten stories. Whilst he adapts traditional methods he is no Luddite, combining historical methods with modern technological processes.
All this seem very far removed from Cheng Tsung Feng’s training as an Industrial designer. During his MA at the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, where he was always top of the class, he became very disillusioned with the straight jacket of industrial design. “I just felt less cool, I just got lost. So I didn't graduate I just left.” This was despite the pleas of his supervisor.
Feng cast his net widely and began looking at traditional crafts and materials, especially bamboo. “I found these bamboo craftsman. I saw some of them making things like chairs. The process is so beautiful.” He began to appreciate everyday objects and everyday techniques and started trying to see how they could be used in a new way. “I found my love I'm really lucky, but the next question was how can I live with less?” In other words how to make a living from such a disrespected field.
He started by doing intense research into process. “I think the most interesting part was (what was) hiding in the process. So I tried to find some special part in the process and based on that I created something new.” For Feng seeing, but above all handling the bamboo was key, it couldn’t be done by watching a video. “In a YouTube video, you don't know the material feeling in your hands. You don't know the strength and the power in your hand when you cannot smell anything. It’s just like how to learn a dance, you need to join in, you need to use your body to absorb the information. One tradition of how to make a steamer or a small chair is delivered by many, many generations of people. Every generation changes things a little bit to make it more simple, perfecting the process. It's not just one generation that can make. It needs 10 or 20 generations. I can feel the power of time,” explains Feng. “I feel the language of the material, the process and the culture.”
A major part of his concept is to get people to value everyday materials, which are generally considered disposable. Bamboo for example is synonymous with chopsticks and the challenge was to give it and the processes that transform it into functional items, some preciousness. He is aware that bamboo fish traps signify man being in harmonious coexistence with nature, but despite the ecological credentials of bamboo, the environmental issues are not his principle focus, which is largely cultural.
His projects, which use architectural techniques to construct large-scale installation art, include a number of performance spaces such as the Bamboo Theatre at the Horse Stone Park (2024) and The Nesting Plan (2019) in Nantou. The latter made of Japanese cedar, woven with rope. Others have a similar performance based feel like his Temple:Flame Tree, Tainan, (2024) or as in The Rite of the Lobster (2023) a bamboo installation that embodies organic patterns of marine life and segments of crustaceans, where performers actually weave the work.
Feng has done a number of projects using canvas-, (a plastic one usually used for outdoor advertising,) to create canvas and stitch pagodas for several lighting festivals, including Sailing Castle for HBO (2019) and Sailing Castle Ren’ai (2023.) All his installations create interesting shadows, with lighting (natural or artificial,) being an important part of the project.
All his studio members are either architects or industrial designers by training. Intriguingly he says “When I was student, traditional craft no one cared. They always wanted to find some new material and use a 3d printer. But, now it’s half and half. What people ask now is how to combine traditional with the new.” That is part of the studio’s speciality, based on a deep understanding of the traditional processes. Feng designs, sketching and then making bamboo models, before moving to computer to expand upon the design.
Originally Feng made smaller, commercial objects but these days his work is on a large scale. Many of his projects are now for luxury brands, such as Hermes, Cartier, Loewe, Bottega Veneta, The Balvenie, Apple, Aesop, Nike, The Ritz-Carlton, HBO and Kvadrat, who see his use of traditional craft as adding strength to their own.
Cheng Tsung Feng’s work is very beautiful. It is good to be able to see it in the UK, but at the Coronet it is rather cramped and sadly doesn’t offer the full experience. After London, Feng is working on a major project in Taiwan, followed by one in Singapore. He’s currently working on a private lobby installation that looks like a landscape made of wool and carpet. “I want to do something special and very, very subjective. But in my design education process, subjective was not a not a good thing.” That’s a paradigm he has managed to reject and craft has given him that freedom. “I have,” he says, “a list of so many kind of traditional craft methods that I still want to learn and know and then use them.”
Taiwan Festival: Cheng Tsung FENG is on show at The Coronet Theatre,103 Notting Hill Gate, London W11 3LB, UK until 27 April 2024.