【Innovative teaching】Light-Up! Wansheng Community Story Lamp

Find the story in the south of Taipei and tell the story with light and shadow

Family Story Box – Children’s Story Lights Light Up Local Memories

子供のストーリーライトが地元の思い出を照らします

My Hope
I hope the “Family Story Lamp" becomes a tender flame, flickering softly through the river of time, igniting every heart it touches. What began as a humble classroom spark has taken root, stretching beyond school walls to family tables, neighborhood alleys, and even the forgotten corners of memory. I dream it becomes a torch in the hands of children, urging them to unearth their family tales—laughter and tears of their grandparents echoing through the years; a gentle glow in the eyes of parents and elders, who marvel as their past transforms into stars cradled by their young ones. I long for this lamp to do more than light up the nights of Wansheng—it should bridge the chasms between generations, mending the fractures of modern life, offering every soul involved—be it student, kin, or neighbor—a place in its glow, a moment to feel seen and cherished. I believe this weaving of intergenerational stories plants seeds of resilience in children, teaching them strength and empathy through whispered legacies, while offering elders a healing light, restoring their worth and dignity in the act of sharing. As time flows on, I hope this project ripples like a quiet stream, growing into an eternal current, etching culture, emotion, and hope into the tapestry of our shared tomorrow. And in the days to come, may it unfurl new chapters, its radiance spilling into every generation, an endless dance of light and love.

Lighting up WanSheng village - Using STEAM courses to lead children to connect the emotions of grandparents and grandchildren from family memories, to find the memory of the city through children's family stories, and to reshape local culture across generations. Wansheng Village is located in the south of the old Taipei City.
大正9年の地名である 「萬盛」大字 - STEAMコースを使用して、家族の思い出を通して祖父母と孫の感情を結び付け、子供たちに家族の話をして街の思い出を見つけさせ、世代を超えて地元の文化を再形成させます

2018 Family Story Lamps Light Up Local Memories

A cultural festival started by a family of children in October 2018. Through different theme projects every year, let the children find stories, tell stories, listen to stories, and find the memory of this city.

Treasure Hill’s neighbors “WanFu Elementary School" started all kinds of workshops from 2018, encourage all students, residents, families and teachers to co-create their own family lamp and to linkup the community’s stories and memories.

Students tell their own family stories, using light and shadow.

The members from the workshop utilized cardboard boxes, reduction gear, shadows, and paper cut to make a story lamp.

Seniors from living near the school came together to cut paper. Share the city’s story with students while cutting paper

Collaborating with National Taiwan University of Arts, students from design department designed the lighting of the culture community, and hold a musical event for the residents to evoke the scenery and memories of them.

During the course, students create light and shadow installations by hand. And tell stories with light and shadow installations.

Story Box lessons for students in classrooms.

After learning, students use the story box to tell their own family stories.

This is the beginning of our design in the first year. Every year, the cultural festival to give light to children has different connotations, different main axes, and the same is the participation of each family.

The story of the place is told in the south of Taipei City, and the memory of the city is told by the stories of 504 families. Tell the story of a family, whether it is a local family or a new immigrant family, with every lamp through the child’s creation

These warm and beloved course activities let the school developed a new feature, the students get to be part of the honored community as well as the community achieved students’ studying.

Visit the chief of village in Wanhe and the teachers of Wanfu Elementary School about children’s cultural festival

Presenting the memory of Chinese New Year with traditional paper-cutting techniques – 2019 Taipei Lantern Festival

2019 Families of elders and children from Wanlong use traditional paper-cuts and story lights to tell the story of the city at Cheng-En Gate

A Land of Happiness－2019 Treasure Hill Light Festival

Through Treasure Hill Light Festival, WanFu Elementary school can bring their unique story lamp to Treasure Hill and light up with the scenery.

Let the children’s parents take the children to see the land they live in with the eyes of environmental conservation. Use light and paper-cut to present a colorful world.

https://castnet.nctu.edu.tw/castnet/article/13125?issueID=703

EXHIBITION

2018/10/05-10/07 ZA SHARE 2018 雜學校
2018/10/22-11/05 Light-Up! Wansheng Community Story Lamp Festival
2018/11/02-11/04 Maker Faire Taipei 2018
2019/02/16-02/24 2019 Taipei Lantern Festival
2019/03/30-05/05 A Land of Happiness－2019 Treasure Hill Light Festival
2019/08/03-08/04 Maker Faire Tokyo 2019
2020/09/19-11/08 Symbiosis Relationship－2020 Treasure Hill Light Festival
2021/12/04-12/05 You Never Know — 2021 Winter Open Day
2024/06/08-06/13 Echoes of Melody: Tracing Time and Capturing Family Stories in Sound and Light
2024/10/18-10/20 Maker Faire Bay Area 2024
2025/01/31 Palo Alto — The Two Ends of the Family History Umbilical Cord

Lighting Up Wansheng Village — Story Lamps 2020: Shared Memories of Water and Touch Across Generations

點亮萬盛庄—故事燈2020—水的記憶

【Way of Thinking】Explore community story in a canoe

In 2020, the senior students will build a story boat together to start the year’s cultural festival. The child will row this boat to see the city from the river.

The theme of 2020 “Memories of Water" comes from the appearance of an invisible city between the two place names, Gongguan to Jingmei. The “invisible city" refers to an irrigation system in the age of agriculture. Because of the development of the city, the river of life that symbolizes the city is hidden under the city ground.
During this year, children and their families use different ways to discover, experience and think about the transformation of the complex hydrology in this area to the past, present and future life.

To find the memory of the city. From the lifeblood of the city, a river with history, look at the city from the perspective of the river. Let’s build a boat together! Build a boat for the memory of finding the river of life.

The hull of the ship is painted, and the memories of countless elders have been visited.

We let the course also connect the emotions of grandparents and parents and children, and make the community full of emotions. In the Woodworking Maker Course, students “build a boat together" and paint community stories on the boat. In this exhibition of Treasure Rock, “Story Boats", “Lanterns in Boats", and “Lamps Telling Stories" tell the feelings and memories that are tied to the community, and let children and big friends see their hometowns with water as their memories.

Symbiosis Relationship－2020 Treasure Hill Light Festival Memories of water 2022

Jingmei River’s Vision Workshop. Gather the power of the place, express the imagination of the future, and let the residents of the place construct the vision of the future.

Pursue memories and find the emeralds in your life. Find and share the beautiful memories of the past with the elders in the community, and find the love for the land in the past for the children.

Memory Of Sound 2021

Is it possible to find the common melody of the family in the songs hummed occasionally by the elders in the family? Or when a melody plays, it always brings back a special family memory! We took the children to find out these stories.

In 2021, we use our voices to evoke family memories belonging to children and elders.
Children record : the most favorite or most impressive memory of the elders. A piece of regional music or song, write down the name of the song or the melody of the piece, record it by humming or performing it down.
Let the children follow the memory of the voice to find the family memories and sweet stories hidden behind the voice. Through such learning activities, children can find the sweetness hidden in family stories with their loved ones during the festival point, let the voice string up the stories of the past, and let the children understand the past and stimulate their thoughts about the future in the process picture.
Continue the search for community stories and collect stories that belong to this area. By finding memories to connect emotions across generations, we will touch every heart in the south of the city in the post-epidemic era.

Pursue a happy and cheerful voice 尋找幸福與愉快的樂音

Students tell their own family stories about voice memories. And make a music box to play the sounds from memory.

Children talk about the memory of the voice of the elders in the family and sing the songs of the elders

In the past few years, we have seen many different countries and races on campus, and students from different countries bring different cultures. This is also one of the concepts that this course wants to convey by telling their own stories, allowing children to use their own stories for cultural exchange.

We have held concerts with National Taiwan University of Arts in the past, Lighting Up! Wanshen Light Festival 2018.
All the families had a very beautiful night, as if we all went back to the past forty years ago

Echoes of Melody: Tracing Time and Capturing Family Stories in Sound and Light

Through cross-generational dialogue, we learn from family members, elders, and neighbors, and bring the historical memories of our hometown’s customs, cultural relics, historical sites, legends, and life wisdom, like the water of Wansheng Creek, to life. It becomes a source of nourishment for life. We integrate handicrafts to create family stories into music boxes and story lamps, and collaborate on the production of wooden boats and sustainable dining tables. We express the historical memories of our hometown and the concept of sustainable progress through our own unique creations, becoming courageous and challenging new era makers. Recount family memories and accumulate energy to move towards a sustainable hometown.

Theme

Family Stories and Voices: An exhibition using light and sound to express family stories and voices
Time Tracks Light Table: Using light and shadow to tell family stories
Life Tracks (Japan Joint Exhibition): Works expressing the life paths of children in Japan and Taiwan

“Intergenerational Narrative"
Through cross-generational dialogue, we learn from family members, elders, and neighbors, and bring the historical memories of our hometown’s customs, cultural relics, historical sites, legends, and life wisdom, like the water of Wansheng Creek, to life. It becomes a source of nourishment for life. We integrate handicrafts to create family stories into music boxes and story lamps, and collaborate on the production of wooden boats and sustainable dining tables. We express the historical memories of our hometown and the concept of sustainable progress through our own unique creations, becoming courageous and challenging new era makers. Recount family memories and accumulate energy to move towards a sustainable hometown.

Students, through the process of interviewing, collecting, retelling, sharing, and exchanging, recreate family memories, experience family culture, cultivate gratitude, love for family and hometown, accumulate the wisdom and pioneering power of their ancestors, and look forward to cultivating a sustainable hometown.

Family Stories and Voices
Close your eyes and listen carefully to the warm whispers coming from the depths of your family.

Grandpa’s humming is a happy time in childhood; Grandma’s gentle voice is the sweetest lullaby before bed; parents’ singing is a warm force that accompanies growth. These melodies, like gold threads, connect the common memories of children’s families and connect the past, present, and future.

In the “Echoes of Melody: Tracing Time and Capturing Family Stories in Sound and Light" special exhibition, we will invite you to join us in excavating those long-forgotten family stories and using sound, light and shadow, and music boxes to transform them into moving works of art. We believe that every family has its own unique story, and these stories are all worth cherishing and passing on. Through this exhibition, we hope to make more people feel the warmth and strength of family power. It can give us courage, hope, and love, and guide us to keep moving forward on the path of life. Let’s come together and use love and creativity to write a happy chapter for each family!

Time Tracks Light Table

The light table stands quietly, the warm light gently calls, carrying the warm memories of countless families. Gently touch the surface of the light table, and vivid images emerge one after another. Those are the faces of grandparents in their youth in memory, the sweet wedding dresses of parents in dreams, and the innocent smiles of children in space. Light and shadow intertwine, time flows, and we seem to have traveled through time and space, back to those warm times. Under the reflection of the light table, we see the changes of the family and feel the love of the family. That’s the loving gaze of grandparents, the earnest reminders of parents, and the innocent laughter of children. This love is so warm, so sincere, so touching. The Time Tracks Light Table is not just a temporary work of art, but a carrier of emotion. It allows us to relive the past, cherish the present, and look forward to the future. Let’s chase family memories in the light and shadow and feel the love whispering through generations!

Life Tracks (Japan)
Life Tracks: Looking at the Splendor of Life Through Glass Jars

On the land of Japan, a group of children stare at the tracks of life with their innocent eyes. Transparent glass jars hold endless imagination for the past, present, and future.

Memories of the past, like sparkling gems, gleam in the jars. It’s the laughter of childhood, the warmth of family, and the joy of growth.
Present life, like a series of mottled paintings, slowly unfolds in the jars. It’s the diligent learning in the classroom, the sweat pouring on the playground, and the laughter and chatter with friends.
Aspirations for the future, like blooming flowers, quietly blossom in the jars. It’s the thirst for knowledge, the pursuit of dreams, and the hope for the future.
Through the glass jars, we see the children’s love for life and their aspirations for the future. In their own way, they interpret the meaning of life and compose a hymn to life. It makes us feel the preciousness of life, the brilliance of life, and the infinite possibilities of life. Let’s listen to the voices of the children and feel the splendor of life together!