Tiled Reverie

Tiled Reverie draws inspiration from the decorative tiles found in Taiwan’s historic architecture. Widely seen across Taiwan in the early twentieth century, these richly coloured tiles feature floral, geometric and auspicious motifs that adorned homes and architectural spaces while expressing hopes for prosperity, happiness and protection. More than decoration, they became cultural symbols carrying wishes and blessings woven into everyday life. “Reverie” evokes a state of dreaming and contemplation. Through the lens of memory, time and cultural imagination, the exhibition looks anew at these visual traces embedded in architecture. Taiwanese fashion brand BOO, in collaboration with Taiwanese artist Yujinia Wang, draws on the colours and motifs of these decorative tiles to develop a new visual language between historical memory and contemporary imagination through painting, deconstruction, rearrangement and reinterpretation. These reinterpreted elements are further transformed into BOO’s original textile prints and applied across contemporary garments, scarves and accessories. Motifs once fixed to architectural surfaces are released from their original setting and brought onto the moving body. Presented alongside Yujinia Wang’s artworks, BOO’s fashion pieces reveal a creative journey from historical imagery and artistic interpretation to textile print and wearable form. The exhibition poses a simple question: what happens when a “blessing” leaves the wall and begins to move with the body? Rather than reproducing traditional decorative tiles, Tiled Reverie considers how their meanings might be experienced anew in the present. As wishes and blessings once embedded in architecture are transformed into clothing, they become something that can be worn, carried and moved—allowing their meanings to continue across new cultural contexts, places and generations.