【市長的話 — 以藝術翻轉城市想像】

臺南藝術節2012年啟辦，以「文化平權」、「藝術扎根」為標，在邁向第八年的此時，我們決定跨出更大的一步，重新定義城市藝術節的高度與格局。每個縣市都在透過藝術節找路，找一條最適在地發展與呈現獨特個性的模式，臺南層次紋理豐厚的文化底蘊，適可對接成為獨特的表現形式，我們透過藝術策展、國際共創、現地製作，透過戶外空間的展演去接觸到更廣大的民眾、引發更多歷史、文化與情感的連結，讓歷史空間與藝術創作產生對話。藝術節，是否應有更高的視野與格局去擘劃這城市文化、藝術的未來想像與可能，這個城市是否能因文化與藝術的創造而被看到、被關注，透過藝術節去表達一個城市的調性跟內涵，是我們未來對藝術節的企圖與宏願。

今年我們邀約了國內外的優秀藝術家，以臺南山、海城市為創作基地，孕育與城市脈動息息相關的全新製作，希望透過表演藝術來參與社會，看見城市的不同面貌，因此，以「看不見的城市」為主題，邀請大家一起出走，共同穿越，釋放和挖掘整個大臺南城市空間裡不同層次的人文地景。  

2019臺南藝術節全新翻轉，以深度觀點進行跨國聯結，建立典範。「城市藝術節」與城市文化紋理深度連結，在國際上行之有年、成效卓著，而臺灣則仍罕見，期透過此次藝術節的轉型呈現，我們得以展現臺南立基文化首府的豐富內涵以及觀照當代的前衛眼光。2019臺南藝術節是進入城市空間的「環境劇場」，更是為臺南古都帶來創新的「當代觀點的藝術節」，是打開公共議題的「市民藝術節」，更是與國際城市聯結的「國際藝術節」。繽紛多彩，只在臺南，偉哲邀您一同出走，穿越看不見的城市。

台南市市長 黃偉哲

【 From the Mayor, Tainan City—— Overturn Our Imagination of the City with Arts】

In 2012, where Tainan Arts Festival held its first event, we made “Equal Right for Culture” and “Rooting for the Arts” our primary goals. This year, we are moving toward the eighth year, and we make a bigger step; we aspire to redefine the status and horizon of city arts festival. Each city is searching for its own path through arts festival, a pattern best fit local development and distinctive character expression. For Tainan, our rich cultural texture and depth is perfectly suitable for the particular expression we seek. Through curating art events, international collaboration, on-site production and outdoor performance, we mean to reach the largest audience possible, so that they trigger further historical, cultural as well as emotional connections, so as to allow conversations between history and art. It is our ambition and expectation for arts festival in the future to have a higher vision and a wider horizon to explore the possibility of Tainan’s culture, art, and imagination. It’s also for Tainan to be seen and attended through culture and art, as it’s for us to express Tainan’s characters and insights by way of arts festival.

This year we invite extraordinary artists from all over the world to come to Tainan as their site of artwork, where they create their brand new work in reflecting on the impulse of this city. We hope they participate in this city through performance art and see Tainan’s various faces. Thus, we employ “the Invisible City” as our theme of the year, and we invite you to join us. Together, we travel, explore and release the various layers of cultural landscape in the urban space of the entire Tainan City.

Tainan Arts Festival 2019 is a whole new beginning. We establish transnational connections with insightful perspectives and aim to make an example. “City arts festival” is deeply entwined with a city’s cultural texture; such an event has been ongoing in the international world for years with visible accomplishments, but it’s still underexplored in Taiwan. With the attempt of transformation in Tainan Arts Festival this year, we expect to present Tainan, Taiwan’s first capital, with its rich culture, as we also attend to avant-garde perspectives of the contemporary time. Tainan Arts Festival 2019 is an environmental theater to enter urban space; it’s also an art event with a contemporary eye to bring innovation to this old city. It is an art event of the city citizens, meant to expose public issues; it’s also an international art event that connects world cities. You find wonder like this only in Tainan. I, Huang Wei-che, the Mayor of Tainan, invite you to go out with me. Let’s travel this invisible city together.