Taiwan’s fishery industry has recently produced about 190,000 tons of aquatic waste annually, including fish scales that are small and easy to attach to other waste and difficult to recycle. They are prone to decay and generate a foul odor that causes environmental health problems. Assistant Professor Jian-You Li at the Institute of Applied Arts of National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (NYCU) has turned discarded fish scales into gold by utilizing 3D printing technology to turn fish scales into artwork for display.
The work “ReuScale-循鱗” comes from the Institute of Applied Arts under the “College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences,” established in August of this year by NYCU. Jian-You Li used a total of about 500 grams of dried scales, which were mainly from recycled and discarded alewife scales, processed them through low-cost methods such as boiling, baking, and crushing, dyed them with a small amount of powdered tea or food coloring, and made the fish scale artworks by 3D printing machine or machine arm.
Jian-You Li’s fish scale recycling and re-creation project won him the Silver Award of the Taiwan Sustainability Action Awards and the Bronze Award of the Asia-Pacific Sustainability Action Awards this year. Last year, he was invited to participate in the Maison & Objet design exhibition in Paris and has established an overseas partnership with the Keio Kamakura Lab, a Japanese company that was responsible for creating a podium through 3D printing using recycled plastics at the Tokyo Olympics to exchange recycled materials and technologies together.
To use artistic creation to arouse public awareness of environmental issues on land and water and production and consumption responsibilities, Jian-You Li personally investigated the Zhunan market, the fishing ports, aquatic product processing factories, and aquaculture farms to look for suitable fish scales. Jian-You Li said that after personally investigating and understanding the complete process of fish scale disposal and the stakeholders’ viewpoints, he found it more efficient to cooperate with aquaculture operators and aquatic product processing factories to obtain recycled fish scales.
NYCU has opened related digital manufacturing courses and micro credits to apply this new material and promote awareness among NYCU’s teachers and students on the issue of waste and the development of new materials to explore possibilities. Jian-You Li said that new materials often inspire art creations; at the same time, about 90% of fish scales are disposed of in landfills, and only 10% are recycled. Although fish scales are still in the experimental stage as an art material and have yet to be further explored, this recycled material model also represents the care of design art for a sustainable environment.
NYCU celebrated an important milestone in its history in September this year – the first official merger of the two colleges after the merger of two universities. “The College of Humanities and Social Sciences,” located in Guangfu Campus, and “the College of Humanities and Social Sciences,” located in Yang Ming Campus, have been formally integrated to become “the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (CHASS).” The integration of these two colleges is the first time that the two colleges have been integrated autonomously from “the bottom up,” emphasizing “culture” as a common foundation and demonstrating NYCU’s profound heritage in the “humanities field” in addition to healthcare and information and communication. There are 14 academic units in CHASS after integration, including Foreign Languages and Literatures, Interdisciplinary Program of Learning Science, Design and Innovative Technology Program, Art and Music, and Philosophy, Intelligence, Brain, and Mind Cross-Disciplinary Program, etc. With 101 full-time faculty members and 850 enrolled students, CHASS has become the college with the most diversified disciplines at NYCU.
Outstanding faculty members in the college also continue to lead academic innovation and social contributions. For example, Professor Pei-Hsien Hsu at the Graduate Institute of Architecture, as the chairman of the Taiwan Bamboo Society, successfully hosted the 12th World Bamboo Congress in March this year, which attracted bamboo industry professionals from 30 countries to gather in Taiwan, showcasing Taiwan’s outstanding achievements in bamboo culture and industrial innovation. Assistant Professor Jian-You Li at the Institute of Applied Arts utilized 3D printing technology to transform the alewife scales into beautiful artworks, which was recognized by both the Taiwan Sustainability Action Award and the Asia-Pacific Sustainability Action Award. Director Wen-Shu Lai, also from the Institute of Applied Arts, promoted preserving and revitalizing local culture through the “Hsinchu’s lociology of the Sixth Fuel Factory.” Last year, the Sixth Fuel Factory team she led won the GOOD DESIGN AWARD in Japan for the “Sixth Fuel Factory Participating Sustainable Living Design” work. The outstanding achievements of these teachers and their teams fully demonstrate the college’s emphasis on and investment in innovation, sustainable development, and local creation.
A college plaque designed by Assistant Professor Tien Ling and his students, Zhen-Wei Weng and Yu-Hong Tam, also highlighted the unveiling ceremony. The new college plaque was designed with three pieces of concrete embedded in each other and then inlaid with metal to symbolize the convergence and integration of humanities, art, and society. The college plaque on the Chiao Tung campus was hung “vertically” to symbolize the vertical development of the college in promoting humanistic values, while the college plaque on the Yang Ming campus was placed “horizontally” to echo the geographical characteristics of the campus on the hillside, demonstrating the college’s care for local culture. In addition, the commemorative planting activities with Taiwan’s native plants, including azaleas, which symbolize the Yangming Mountains in Taipei, Hsinchu chrysanthemums, which represent the Hsinchu area, and Taiwan lilies, etc., not only mark the historical moments of the college but also symbolize the college’s sustainable development and spirit of sustainability in the future. The college will provide critical thinking and innovative solutions to society through cross-disciplinary collaboration and international connections. It will strive to cultivate leading talents with both humanistic qualities and technological practices, contributing to the advancement of social civilization in the future.
(Right) The Sixth Fuel Factory team led by Wen-Shu Lai, the Director of the Institute of Applied Arts, utilized intelligent technology and ecological ethics to consider chicken coops and bat roosts as part of sustainable living and to realize the concept of more-than-human, contributing to community welfare and ecological conservation and education. She was awarded the GOOD DESIGN AWARD 2023 in Japan ©NYCU
