Lize International Puppet Art Village

An immersive puppet wonderland. Lize International Puppet Art Village is Taiwan's first art park centered around contemporary puppetry. Integrating 25 years of creative energy from the pioneer of contemporary puppet theater, 'If Kids Theatre Workshop', it has been meticulously crafted into a charming creative space that inspires limitless artistic imagination through puppet creation, cultural and artistic interactive experiences and performances, educational promotion, and international exchange. It is a brand new artistic and creative hub globally, developed around puppetry, and furthermore, Taiwan's international puppetry talent incubation base and creative development center. The Lize International Puppet Art Village is located near the Dongshan River, situated beside Lize Old Street. It is a complex of buildings reconstructed and revitalized from old granaries in Yilan, making it one of Yilan's important cultural landmarks. The art village includes: a puppet exhibition hall, a professional puppet-making factory, artist studios, rehearsal rooms, three theater-style performance spaces (large, medium, and small), and an outdoor theater. It is Asia's largest contemporary puppetry creation and exchange base. The 'Artist-in-Residence Program' is an important international exchange program launched by the art village in 2016. Over the past 8 years, a total of 68 artists from 27 countries have come to reside, create, perform, and engage in exchanges, yielding fruitful international exchange results for the art village. Furthermore, the art village regularly organizes professional puppetry masterclass workshops, sparing no effort to cultivate professional contemporary puppetry talent for Taiwan. In recent years, recognizing that domestic and international theaters are facing a dilemma of a shortage of craftspeople, the art village rallied excellent domestic puppetry instructors. With the support of the National Culture and Arts Foundation's 'Art Future Action Plan,' it established the first 'International Puppetry Craftsmanship School,' systematically nurturing aspiring individuals to develop in puppetry craftsmanship and creation to become professional artisans. The enthusiastic participation in this year's second cohort, which saw enthusiastic registrations and quickly filled up, demonstrates that the 'International Puppetry Craftsmanship School' has gained significant attention and anticipation, and is bound to become Taiwan's most influential contemporary puppetry professional talent incubation center in the future. 'Playing with Puppets in the Granary' is an accessible activity specially designed by the art village for the general public to experience puppet art up close. It cleverly utilizes the rich and diverse themed areas within the art village, such as the 'World Puppet Exhibition,' 'Puppet Base Exploration,' and 'Interactive Puppet Theater,' planning various ways to explore the park year by year. Among these, the 'Puppet United Nations' exhibition, which features the 'Puppet Family,' allows visitors to fully appreciate over 20 years of magnificent collections, covering puppetry from Taiwan to Southeast Asia, from Asia to Europe, tracing its journey from old granaries to a contemporary puppetry hub. Led by puppetry artisans, visitors can tour and admire the wonderful world of puppet art, offering a glimpse into the diverse cultural landscape of global puppetry. Furthermore, there is the 'Puppet Manipulation Experience' where visitors can learn about different puppetry forms and personally operate puppets, and 'Behind-the-Scenes of Puppet Art Creation,' where visitors can traverse through the puppet-making studio, woodworking factory, and rehearsal rooms, witnessing the magical birth of puppets, with masters right there in the granary. And then there is the 'Take a Puppet Home – Creative Puppetry DIY' workshop, encouraging the public to use their imagination and creativity to create their own unique little puppet. In addition, there are diverse art education promotions for schools and art festival activities such as 'Granary Open House,' leading people of all ages in Taiwan to experience puppetry aesthetics up close and shining brightly by connecting with the international stage.