Artist | Cheng Tsung FENG @chengtsungfeng
A mere shift in perspective is often enough to alter our established perceptions. Stepping into Fan Cheng-Tsung's work, one often forgets that it is a human-made creation. Its forms and materials, drawn from nature, invite people to pause almost unconsciously and experience sensations different from those of everyday life. Sunlight filtering through the circular leaves seems softer, while the breeze passing between the staggered stems becomes easier to perceive. Even the simple act of looking up at these giant plants evokes an instant sense of smallness, as if one were a ladybug or butterfly pausing and flying among them. Presented at Pier-2 Art Center, Structural Botany: 26MY-804-47 resembles an unidentified plant that has sprouted from a field. The enigmatic sequence of numbers attached to the work denotes the year of discovery and the local postal code, as though a meticulous botanist were assigning a designation to a newly discovered species, while at the same time inviting viewers to imagine a name of their own.
The work extracts geometric vocabularies from the diverse characteristics of plants. Light oval leaves, slender quadrangular stems, and opposite leaves borne in pairs are all meticulously reinterpreted through artificial structures and biomimetic logic. At their natural scale, these plants might be inconspicuous clusters growing by the roadside; yet here, equidistantly arranged at heights ranging from 2.3 to 4.6 metres, they reveal an astonishing sense of order and beauty akin to architecture. Slightly different from the series exhibited at Swiio Villa Yilan in 2025, the bases have expanded from individual seats into circular communal platforms of varying sizes that interweave with one another, forming a more dynamic public space for gathering and shared use.
Set against the blue sky and drifting clouds, the upward-curved leaves appear to grow toward the sun with an air of vitality, while the layered canopy structures resemble an artificial forest, extending an invitation of shelter and repose to those passing through Pier-2. Based on his observations of the green spaces surrounding the Penglai Warehouse District at Pier-2 Art Center in Kaohsiung, Fang Cheng-Tsung chose to embed the work within the context of this site. In shaping an installation landscape, he also transforms the relationship between people and space: if this field could grow a giant plant, would the people moving among it become like tiny insects and animals seeking shade? The image that first germinated in his mind ultimately grew into this urban landscape where people can pause, rest, and converse.
More than an artwork intended simply for viewing, Structural Botany: 26MY-804-47 also explores the possibilities of constructing public space and intervening in the landscape. The work offers an exceptionally gentle perspective from which to reconsider the interdependent relationship between the city and nature. By enlarging plant structures that often go unnoticed and rendering them legible, it reminds us that human beings have always lived within the scale of nature. Through shifts in scale and the revelation of botanical structures, the work reveals the shared spatial order that plants and architecture possess—one concerned with support, shelter, and the organization of space.
Project Designer | Chan-Wei HSU, Chung-Sheng HSU
Structural Analysis | Jian Quan Engineering Consultants
Woodwork | JW Interior
Metalwork | Yi Chang Laser, Jeng Dah Perforating, Wen Ching HSU
Lighting Design | OuDe Light
Lighting Engineer | Beamtec Lighting
Lifting & Transport Engineering | Jun Yi Engineering, Sheng Fa Enterprise Co.
Excavation Engineering | Jun Hong Machinery Engineering
Dispatch Labor | Shou Fu Human Resources Dispatching
Photography | FIXER Photographic Studio @fixer_photographic_studio
