Chinese name: 日日田職物所
Established: 2016
Located at: Taoyuan City (Northern Taiwan)
Did You Know?
Day Day Tian Studio combines four resources—museum, temple, community, and youth—to promote local revitalization. Through collaborative learning and creation with residents, it preserves and showcases the diverse characteristics of the local community.
The founder of Day Day Tian Studio, Kao Ching-jung (高慶榮), used to work as an art teacher in a school. Interested in education beyond the traditional classroom setting, he got involved in public art, branding, and revitalization projects for old spaces such as 3 So Market (三手微市集) and Sinnan12 Homestay (新南12文創) in Taoyuan.
In 2016, Kao returned to his hometown of Nanxing Community (南興社區) and used his expertise in art and design to revitalize the unused warehouse of the Shen Nong Yongchang Temple (神農永昌宮) in Daxi District (大溪區). It was there that he established Day Day Tian Studio. The idea behind the name is twofold—"Day Day" implying taking one day after another with a positive attitude, constantly accumulating positive life experiences, and "Tian (田)" coming from the Mandarin for “field,” bringing with it connotations of being close to the land and continuously cultivating it.
To convince the elders in the community to get involved, Kao Ching-jung launched the Daxi Wood Art Ecological Museum corner store project and opened a location in Nanxing. Through a process of learning and creating together with residents, they aim to preserve and showcase the diverse local characteristics.
The team adopts a "repair rather than rent" approach, repairing and organizing local living spaces, and assisting the community in proposing rural regeneration plans. They have paved the stone road of the temple square and advocated for the establishment of YouBike stations to promote low-carbon travel in the countryside. Today, when you walk into Day Day Tian Studio, it is bright and comfortable, with a place to look through goods, a "shared cultural recreation" bar, and even rental services available.
Yongchang Temple, located in the community, is a temple dedicated to Shennong (神農), the “divine farmer,” with a history of over 270 years. However, due to the serious outflow of rural population, the passing along of this particular cultural heritage has begun to encounter interruptions. To prevent the disappearance of this important local culture, Kao Ching-jung and his team conducted field surveys, collected various legends and stories about the temple, and developed a series of workshop courses crafted around the local culture.
In addition, the team also holds workshops and offers courses on plant dyeing, plant weaving, and other local activities to encourage participation from local residents. From this, the “Grassroots Academy” has blossomed, a place where community elders and young people come together to learn about the use of local herbs and rebuild the local knowledge base. Through these, the team has developed unique local tours.
In addition to translating temple culture, the team has implemented a consistent series of plans, including promoting "the Old Houses, New Life Movement," advocating for "environmental improvement," and creating the "Doing Farming" project. According to Kao Ching-jung, these plans are simply ways to address various challenges observed in daily life and find solutions to overcome them.
In early 2018, Kao founded Day Day Tian Creative Design Co., Ltd. The company operates in various fields, including professional art curation, event planning and execution, visual design, and cultural and creative development. They also engage in community building, space revitalization and management, and community resource integration. The studio also hosts creative markets, collaborating with skilled artisans to promote the continuation and development of their crafts. Through networking, the studio hopes to act as a catalyst for promoting local specialties and artistic participation, including education, experience, and exhibitions, to stimulate industry growth. They also aim to attract more people to participate in their events, creating a mechanism and platform for mutual benefit.
According to Kao, if you had to describe Day Day Tian with a scent, it would definitely be the smell of soil. He believes that the smell of soil depends on its location and the type of plants grown in it, just like the overall atmosphere of a community depends on the people who live there. No matter where people go, they will unconsciously recall the smell of the land they grew up on. By focusing on the cultural value of the area, he hopes to plant and cultivate more on this land in the future, allowing more people to recognize and understand the local community's characteristics.
(Photo courtesy of Day Day Tian Studio)