Wang Yu-Song

王煜松 

Seeing Hualien Again: Outdoor Sketching After the Earthquake is a public workshop developed and facilitated by the Earthquake Sketching Group, inviting local residents of Hualien to revisit sites transformed by the earthquake through the practice of sketching. The workshop encourages participants to look again at familiar places and to reconsider their relationship with the landscapes they inhabit.

The Earthquake Sketching Group is a collective of fifteen young artists from Hualien. During the workshop, the group guided participants through earthquake-affected locations including Beibin Street, the Uranus Building, and the former Chateau de Chine Hotel. Through observation, drawing, conversation, and shared reflection, participants were invited to engage with both the physical changes of the city and the memories embedded within these places.

Rather than treating sketching as an exercise in representation, the workshop approaches drawing as a method of understanding place. Each participant brought their own memories to the sites: some drew the excavators and demolition work before them, while others reconstructed brightly coloured buildings that now existed only in memory. The resulting drawings became landscapes shaped by the intersection of lived experience and the present moment.

The workshop concluded with a collective sharing session, in which participants reflected on both their drawings and their experiences. Through this process, the Earthquake Sketching Group proposes sketching not only as an artistic practice, but also as a way of understanding the earthquake, reconnecting with place, and preserving memories that continue to shape Hualien's changing landscape.