The National Palace Museum (NPM) shoulders the responsibility of showing the world its collection of exquisite Chinese artifacts as well as interpreting and educating Taiwanese culture. The main purpose of opening the NPM Southern Branch is to promote Asian art and culture, where the promotion starts with understanding Taiwanese art and culture. The NPM Southern Branch will make its galleries available to outside exhibition organizers so that other exhibitions and artifacts can be shown in the NPM, allowing the public to explore the culture of Taiwan's indigenous peoples. Accordingly, the NPM invited six major museums that possess a wealthy collection of Taiwanese indigenous peoples-related artifacts to curate a joint exhibit. These museums comprise the Museum of Institute of Ethnology (of the Academia Sinica), the National Taiwan Museum, the NTU Museum of Anthropology, the National Museum of Prehistory, the Beitou Museum, and the Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines. Innumerable Efforts on the Art of Clothes: A Joint Exhibit of Taiwan Indigenous Textiles, divided into two separate exhibitions, will be held from Jun. 1 to Dec. 9, 2018.
After examining the various characteristics of the indigenous textile collection, visitors of this exhibit will discover traditional materials such as bark clothes and leather clothes; traditional techniques such as weaving, beadwork, embroidery, and appliqué techniques; and find the variations of styles and techniques which had been developed over time and been adopted over a wider area. These textile articles have different cultural meanings for different ethnic groups and regions, and they are made for various occasions and social ranks. Based on the numerous discussions between the six museums, a total of 268 unique objects will be displayed, showing the different techniques and materials used to make the indigenous textiles of each Taiwanese indigenous people, and the culture and stories behind these indigenous textiles.