Organizers:
Drive-Through Art (DTA)
Setouchi Art Collectives (SAC)
Co-organizer:
FORMOSA ART FAIR — 2026 ART FORMOSA
Timeline and Location:
Open Call Period:December 5, 2025 – December 15, 2025
Exchange Period: December 16, 2025 – December 31, 2025
Exhibition Dates: January 9, 2026 – January 11, 2026
Exhibition Venues:
Taiwan: Grand Hyatt Taipei
Japan: To be confirmed
Cross-Cultural Room Exchange: S2 — Taipei–Setouchi
To support cultural and creative practitioners in expanding their practice through international residency experiences, the second edition of Beautiful & Affordable: Accessible — The Residency Exchange You Don't Need to Travel For is now open for online applications. Deadline: December 15, 2025, 5:00 p.m. (Taiwan time).
Program Overview
This program is a collaboration between Setouchi Art Collectives (SAC) in Japan and Drive-Through Art (DTA) in Taiwan, with additional support from Formosa Art Fair. Eight artists and cultural creators will be selected to participate in this innovative no-travel residency. Building on the first edition's cross-border spatial exchange concept, participating artists will explore and interpret foreign cultures from within their own living and working environments. This model reduces language and financial barriers and enables meaningful international exchange. While DTA does not provide studio or housing subsidies, the program encourages artists to use their own spaces as the basis for creative work inspired by another culture.
Exhibition & New Elements
The projects will be presented at Art Future 2026 in Taipei. In addition to the program's core values—dual perspectives, cost efficiency, and cultural reinterpretation—this edition introduces three new elements: art sales, relay-based co-creation, and community experience. Participating artists are asked to provide works that will be offered for sale; these will be exhibited at the fair with support from an art manager to facilitate potential transactions.
Theme: Artists' Community Experience
This year's theme invites artists from both countries to collaborate through a relay creative process. The eight selected artists will exchange editable materials—artworks, sketches, or concepts—in any format. Through two rounds of exchange, each pair will complete a joint work. This represents a form of long-distance community building, a "community transmission" between two cultures.
Mentor
We are pleased to invite An-Bo Kao, a participant from the first edition, to return as mentor. He will share his exchange experience with this year's participants and select one artist to make a playful intervention in their work; the resulting collaboration will be included in the exhibition.
Program Highlights
1. Artist Exchange Day
During the first week of the program, we will hold an online meeting for all participating artists. This virtual session provides an initial opportunity for cultural and artistic exchange.
2. Community Experience & Relay Creation
Unlike the first edition's direct work exchange, this edition emphasizes community and locality, reflecting the unique characteristics of Setouchi. Japanese artists will send concepts, sketches, or editable works to Taiwanese artists, who will reinterpret them through their own understanding and "community imagination." These works will be exhibited in dedicated spaces at Art Future 2026 in Taipei. After the exhibition, the works will be sent back to Japan, where Japanese artists will further develop them, creating a third iteration to be exhibited in Setouchi.
3. Outcome Documentation
Within 20 days of completing their site-based reinterpretation, artists will document the finished works and process. Using various formats, they will reflect on the residency outcomes. Relevant texts and records will be shared on the DTA official website and social media platforms.
About Drive-Through Art (DTA)
Drive-Through Art (DTA) began as an experimental approach to contemporary art curation, forming a cross-disciplinary community of curatorial practitioners. Contemporary art offers many possibilities but also comes with limitations. By combining these tensions with cross-disciplinary thinking, DTA creates exhibitions that are aesthetic, efficient, and cost-effective.
Thanks to the diversity of the DTA team—which includes artists, visual designers, directors, brand consultants, and independent curators—DTA also provides services beyond exhibitions, including regional revitalization, community building, brand development, visual design, art curation, and audiovisual production. In all of these areas, we use art as a tool to create differentiation and infuse creativity.