Kaohsiung’s steel sculpture festival until November 22: Yu-Hsiu Lin-Hung turns bridal lace skills into metal flowers

The 2026 Kaohsiung International Steel & Iron Sculpture Festival, SUPER STAGE, opened on October 23 and runs until November 22, connecting metal creativity across Pier-2’s Penglai B3 Warehouse, Hamasen Railway Cultural Park and the Yancheng neighbourhood. In the main exhibition, SUPER SAFE, 85-year-old Yu-Hsiu Lin-Hung’s auspicious metal flowers translate bridal lace-making skills into stainless-steel floral clusters. Her work offers a personal route into a festival rooted in steel industry culture. The latest introduction issued on October 29 is not the exhibition’s opening date.

A safe that preserves more than metal

“Safety first”, a familiar factory rule, becomes a question about labour and preservation. Penglai B3 Warehouse is imagined as a safe addressed to the future: metal may endure, while techniques, bodily experience and everyday memories do not necessarily survive with an object. Industrial, personal and social histories are placed together, asking how future viewers might understand Kaohsiung as it is now.

Displays inspired by H-beams use orange-red to evoke high-temperature smelting, bringing design products, metal furniture and works about labour into the same field of view. Official photographs show long orange structures extending along both sides, leaving space between them for walking and looking; another angle shows visitors moving closer to individual objects. Industrial imagery becomes a framework for viewing, rather than a requirement that every exhibit resemble a large steel structure.

From bridal flowers to stainless-steel mesh

Lin-Hung learned tailoring in Yancheng when she was young and made wedding dresses for brides. The Cultural Affairs Bureau’s account says her hearing gradually declined following a fall more than a decade ago. Returning to familiar skills, she began shaping lace-like flowers with metal mesh. The floral clusters and three-dimensional forms connect more than softness and hardness: they continue an established working experience through a different material.

In an official exhibition photograph, groups of silver-coloured flowers line the orange displays, their intricate surfaces contrasting with broad areas of colour. A closer photograph shows the artist holding a flower form, making the relationship between hand and object visible. These images help move attention from outline to detail, but cannot establish how long each flower takes to make, or whether works may be touched or purchased. Reflections on metal should not be described as a real flower’s scent or tactile qualities.

Separate the main show, on-site making and Yancheng visits

SUPER LOCAL links six Yancheng art spaces with the Kaohsiung Museum of History, bringing street corners and local memories into the festival. Other programmes include on-site creation, an international forum, workshops, forging experiences, concerts and cultural walks. Each has its own dates and participation conditions; entering the main exhibition does not mean every activity is available at any moment. Individual neighbourhood venues also follow their own opening announcements.

The Penglai B3 exhibition continues until November 22, opening Monday–Thursday from 10am to 6pm and Friday–Sunday and public holidays from 10am to 8pm, at No.99 Penglai Road, Gushan District, Kaohsiung. The Hamasen on-site creation programme ends earlier, on November 15. Its listed hours are 10am–6pm daily, with an explicit note that working periods vary, so live welding cannot be guaranteed at any given time. Start with B3’s material and personal stories, then consult the official map and activity registration information before moving into the neighbourhood.