In 1998, the central office of the Cultural Affairs Bureau the Executive Yuan proposed to complete the “railroad arts network” that has been reconstructed from the cargo storages of 8 western railway stations within 5 years, and Chiayi station had originally ranked at the 4 th position of the original plan. The Cultural Affairs Bureau originally wished the city to react to the plan earlier, so it entrusted “YoYehLin Art Creative Studio” for planning and implementation. Beginning in August 1999, it started to rent a private storage of 55 pings, and it had been trailed a year in July 2000. After different artists or groups stationing at this place every month, it provided many young creators a chance innovating new style of arts. It was therefore chosen as the second “railroad art website”, second to the 20 th storage of Taichung .

In addition to connecting with other cities of “railroad arts network” in the future, and jointing with Alishan railroads and gardens that nearby the Cultural Affairs Bureau, we aim to continually create accomplishments of modern arts development on Chinan plain. The dream of making Chiayi an arts city has gradually come true. We wish to attract more outstanding local talents coming back to hometown to create an elegant and wonderful living environment of arts.

When the former Taiwan provincial government begun to plan “railroad arts network project” in 1999, Chiayi was positioned as a city of art & culture. For the sake of the former mayor Pao-ya Chang's great supports and artists' active participation, Chiayi launched an alternative space exhibition at the Wanshan storage, where is a storages chain behind the railroad station that left unused, and it opened a new art land that differed from palace exhibitions. It has become the first activity space in Taiwan where employed railroad storage. In July 2000, when the Cultural Affairs Bureau the Executive Yuan was looking for the second network spot, under mayor Li-jen Chen's notice and emphasis, Chiayi's outstanding performance has finally been discovered. It stood out of the five counties & cities that competed at that time, and became the second largest railroad arts network of the nation that was second to the 20 th storage of Taicahung.

Paihsing street , the major entrance & exit of entering railroad storage, was originally called Peikong car head. In the early stage during Taiwan 's recovery, this place had become the cargo transportation center because of storage. Through the railways to transport the large amount of commodities, such as concrete, coals, woods, and food, the train transported commodities and loaded here, and then the trucks or cattle trucks transported them out to other places.

Each day the trucks came and out, there were over 200 moving workers who worked here; it was the starting point of Alishan Forest railways, and the terminal of the little commercial train of the Taitung Peikong line. People crowded that had contributed the prosperities of restaurants, hardware stores, and golden stores on Peihsing street . On the old long street under 300 meters, where presented a scene that people and automobiles never-ending in 24 hours. Nevertheless, as time has changed and the decline of railways transportation function, the prosperities of Peihsing street no more exist. The desolated residents, whose memories contain proud, who kept watching this lonely & peaceful street, spending some gloomy years, and they await miracles happening.

1. positioning

Exhibition space of contemporary arts.

A platform of artists' creation, sharing, and exhibiton.

Educational spot to the public.

Local traits.

2. strategy:

To plan professional arts activities and to enhance arts standard within the district.

An opinion exchange opportunity for artists' creation announcement, sharing, and works marketing.

To promote arts education to cultivate local art talents.

To thrust arts exchange and to indefinite arts & culture activities.

To establish the private-operated arts developing organization so as to carry out locality of the development of arts village.

To build up a creation, announcement, and marketing network between railways and Chiayi districts.

3. Goals by stages

Short-term: to carry out systematic operation, improving hardware space, planning professional exhibition, and joining folk's power.

Middle-term: to establish a cross-district exchange channel and to organize the private development groups.

Long-term: budget self-given, operation and management-localized, as well as information arts village.

The hardware space scheme has divided into exterior and interior space planning. The exterior space planning includes outdoor exhibition & performance area, recreational arts area, as well as combination area.

Outdoor Exhibition & Performance Area

The venue is reserved for big-scale arts work exhibition and small-scale performing activity, which links up with storage performing space and exhibition & performance space.

Combination Area

It offers parking space and is reserve for big-scale exhibition & performance activities, which is also the entrance square of our village. Due to the outdoor space belongs to the Railways Bureau, there is no specific usage rules for the space; therefore, the exploitation of the space should be flexible.

planning includes three areas, they are creation, exhibition & performance, and camp management areas.

The interior space is composed of 6 storages, the total area is about 2,000 square meters.

The northern side of the storage is creation area, there are creative rooms (offering basic creation tools and facilities), artists studios that offers artists a broad and extensive living space of arts creation (they are living rooms as well as a personal studio), and exchange area for artists.

The central of the storage is exhibition & performance area, including exhibition and performance space, and the total area is 305 square meters that allows artists to exhibit their works. The total area of performing space is 218 square meters, which offers performing groups an indefinite experimental performance space.

The southern section of the storage is camp management area, which is the central of the arts village. Operation management center, promotional & educational center, cafeteria & recreation space as well as arts service areas are all centralized here.

Artists Studios: The artists studio is composed by the 1 st and the 3 rd storage, they are respectively scheduled as three studios of concrete categories and six studios of various categories. The size of each studio is about 20 to 30 pings, which include a bathroom, a tea room as well as a bedroom.

In addition, there are also creative rooms that provide creation machines for big art works. And the artists association room offers artists with social space, laundry and kitchen equipment.