“Illuminating the Storeroom” the inaugural collection-based education exhibition of the Taichung Green Museumbrary, is curated by arcicake design. Taking the museum’s normally inaccessible collection storage as its point of departure, the exhibition transforms the behind-the-scenes spaces of artwork conservation and research into a learning environment that audiences can understand—and actively participate in.
The exhibition features a range of interactive experience units designed to guide visitors—through clear and accessible approaches—toward an understanding of the journey of artworks from creation to collection. Among these, three digital experiences form key highlights.“Shaped with Light – AI Experience” employs pose recognition technology to introduce visitors to the structural principles of posture in figurative art and sculpture. By taking photographs and generating sculpture images that simulate bronze material, participants experience the process through which three-dimensional forms are created.“A Spark of Inspiration – Color Mixing & Painting Experience” combines simulated color mixing with sketch-based painting, allowing visitors to personally blend pigments and freely experiment with different brushes, immersing themselves in the joy of artistic creation. “The Light of Art” uses RFID technology to enable visitors to handle conservation tools and materials actually used in the museum’s collection process. Through visual presentations, the experience reveals how artworks are preserved, restored, and managed after entering the collection.
From a production standpoint, simulating real-world pigment mixing and brush textures through digital interaction is inherently challenging. As the overall experience was primarily designed for children, the team repeatedly reconsidered the interaction flow to make the operations as intuitive as possible. In “Shaped with Light – AI Experience,” real-time on-screen character guidance allows visitors to activate the experience simply by waving their hands, eliminating the need for complex buttons and enabling a natural transition into interaction. For material simulation, more than a dozen prompt prototypes were iteratively tested before achieving a convincing bronze-like texture.
In “A Spark of Inspiration – Color Mixing & Painting Experience,” we aimed to recreate the tactile sensation of oil painting, particularly the act of mixing pigments with a palette knife. This mixing process is not merely about color overlay; it also involves the buildup of pigment thickness and the dynamic blending between colors. Both elements are essential to approximating the authenticity of real-world color mixing.
However, within the constraints of the digital color gamut, colors lack the physical properties of real pigments, making it especially difficult to convey painterly texture through a screen. To address this challenge, we recorded real pigment-mixing processes frame by frame and combined them with digital computation for translation and simulation. As a result, the digital visuals respond to the characteristics of physical color mixing, allowing children to experience textures and color transitions that closely resemble real painting during interaction.
By replacing one-way explanations with hands-on operation and interactive experiences, the exhibition—especially for younger audiences—helps visitors understand the complete lifecycle of an artwork from creation to collection, and to recognize the important role the Taichung Art Museum plays in art conservation and educational outreach.
Exhibition Organizer ｜ archickae design
Project Coordination ｜archickae design
Project Manager｜Rita Yeh、Kiki Huang
Interactive Experience Planning ｜Kiki Huang
AI Model Training ｜Pocky Lin 、Jin Lee
Programming & Development ｜Pocky Lin 、Jin Lee
Network Engineering Support｜David Chen
Motion Graphics｜Aaron Zhang
Photo Credits｜FIXER Photographic Studio