Creation & Art Empowerment for Taiwanese Elders

We are solidifying our third year at the Nangang Community Center with elders in Taiwan and brought two amazing artists both inspired by the beauty of nature. 

Teacher JiaChi, as a jewelery artist, took acrylic painting to a new level with hand dexerity in landscape terrain from a bird's eye point of view of the nature of Taiwan, taping and painting out flowers, fields and trees. Step by step and understanding how various angles change the "shape" of objects change (trees looking triangular face on and circular from above), we were able to have our older friends bring a different depth and beauty to the paintings. 

Teacher Wendy from Race for the Beach is someone we have collaborated with for the past three years in our annual surf camp and beach clean up with kids. We would have loved to have taken our older friends to the beach to participate in the sport but due to mobility issues, we decided to first introduce them to "trash" by upcycling items that can be found at the beach; plastic bottles. This time, we took many hours to prep approximately 80 bottles from the trash to prepare fo this workshop and they participated in splitting, cutting, taping, marking, nailing, and lightly holding plastic pieces over a small candle to curl the petals of their flower. It definitely took hard work with being able to view the small details with the materials being transparent, but the final product of a gorgeous flower was something they were all proud of. We love that there is something so beautiful that can be created from discarded items and letting them learn and contribute to SDGs and challenging us and themselves. 

Bright Side Projects hope that we can have more support in 2026 to bring different types of workshops to our older friends; we hope to share our plans with you soon!

Links:

• Bright Side Website Older Folks Reports
• Sustainable Flowers Workshop
• Bird's Eye View Aerial Paintings