by David Yang
Next week, April 24 through May 2, ten MCU School of Design students will have the opportunity to further their exchange of design ideas in Switzerland with Swiss students at the Ecole Professionnelle des Arts Contemporains (EPAC) Institute. The MCU delegation will be headed by Mr. Lin, Chien-hwa, who is a faculty member in the Department of Commercial Design. The participating students were chosen based on their academic performances during the last 3 or 4 years of study at MCU. This is the second activity in this exchange instruction series. The first was a successful workshop held at MCU from March 21 to April 4. A delegation from EPAC, consisting of one instructor, Steve, and 5 students, participated in workshops on paper-cutting art, Chinese Calligraphy painting, and interactive technology creation. Also, the EPAC delegation visited the National Palace Museum and Lin Liu-Hsin Puppet Theatre Museum. At the end of the exchange visit, a seminar was held to show their creative works and discuss what the Swiss students think about Taiwan images, and the differences between the two countries in regard to fine art creation. Under support from the 2009 Teaching Excellence Project Subproject 4 – study abroad and cultural experience – funded by the Ministry of Education in Taiwan, the Department of Commercial Design at MCU hosted this exchange program. In return, the EPAC Institute is providing free accommodations to the MCU delegation in Switzerland. EPAC Institute will assign well-known professors to host the workshops held there. These will consist of an orientation to EPAC Institute, Saxon cultural experience with story, comic script design, cartoon drawing, home visit, final performance demonstration and discussion.