We are so lucky at Juxtapoz to be able to look at all the unique and amazing art and creative events that are happening around the world. Never in our wildest dreams did we think we could get some insight on the Bologna Children’s Book Fair (BCBF), but this past week, they kicked off its 59th edition from June 14th to 17th online, welcoming illustrations and children’s books from all over the world. Our friends at the Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA) curated the virtual Taiwan Pavilion featuring Taiwanese artists and partnered with Taiwan’s Animation and Visual Effects Association to promote this year’s lineup with ten short animations.

“This year, we’re not only promoting Taiwan’s illustration and publishing industries to the world, but also incorporating cross-industry collaboration. We adapt illustrations into animations and showcase potentials in Taiwanese content at the BCBF market,” said TAICCA CEO LEE Ming-Che.

Taiwanese children’s books and illustrations garnered exceptional recognition at the BCBF this year. LIN Lian-En’s “HOME” and Animo Chen’s “Love Letter” receive the prestigious Bologna Ragazzi Award under the fiction and poetry category, respectively. This year’s official selection includes 77 illustrations, eight of which are Taiwanese, from a total of 3,235. *See details of selected Taiwanese works in the appendix.

The Taiwan Pavilion themed “To Live is To Create” invites well-known illustrator/designer, Croter Hung (洪添賢) to design the key visual. He depicts Taiwanese daily lifestyles that have inspired many content creators. The virtual pavilion will display 298 publications recommended by 64 publishers through the open-call co-organized by TAICCA and the Taipei Book Fair Foundation. 

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The Taiwan Pavilion will feature the ten animations adapted from BCBF official selection, Golden Tripod Awards and Golden Comic Awards winners, works from the

Books from Taiwan Initiative (BFT), as well as illustrations and children’s books in Hakka and Taiwanese languages, along with 12 award-winning illustrators.

To further promote Taiwan’s wonderful illustrations, the Taiwan Pavilion also features the online illustration exhibition “HOME TOWN TAIWAN,” organized by the Taipei Illustration Fair, Ministry of Culture Taiwan Academy in Houston, and Auspicious Design. The exhibition showcases ten Taiwanese illustrators’ 59 works inspired by their lives in Taiwan.

In addition, since the last year’s BCBF was canceled due to the pandemic, six Taiwanese creators were unable to accept their awards in person. Thus, the Taipei Book Fair Foundation also plans a special exhibition for these works on this year’s Taiwan Pavilion.

Today, we take a look at the artists that won and took part, with the stories of their careers as well. 

Hsiao-chi CHANG, Winners at The Illustration Exhibition
Graduated from the Department of Fine Arts at the National Kaohsiung Normal University, CHANG Hsiao-chi went on to pursue her MFA in Illustration at Academy of Art University in USA, where she majored in children's books. Awarded by The Bologna Children's Book Fair 2021 and 2020, Chang is also a winner of the 3x3 International Illustration Show. Her works have been exhibited in many cities, such as San Francisco, New York, and Tokyo, and featured in many journals and children's picture books. The Moon Today and When I Was Waiting for My Mom are two of Chang's recent publications. She expects herself to create more picture books in the future.

Tzu-Chun CHANG, The Children-Spectators - The 2021 selected illustrators
Chun is a freelance Taiwanese illustrator with an MA in Children’s book illustration from Cambridge School of Art and a BA in Motion picture from Taiwan University of Arts. Her work mainly focuses on human relationships and socio-political issues. She enjoys playing with word-image relationship, the use of metaphors, and creating visual narrative to give the sense of time. She loves films, philosophy as well as nature and would love to do more book/editorial illustrations. Her aim is to tell stories about difficult subjects in an approachable way.

Pei Hsin CHO Crown Shyness

Pei-Hsin CHO, Winners at The Illustration Exhibition / International Award for Illustration Bologna Children’s Book Fair and Fundación SM
Pei-Hsin is a Taiwanese visual storyteller with a particular focus on illustration and animation, currently based in London. Her work is narrative-based and revolves around sentimentalism and introspection. She combines traditional and digital mediums to depict a variety of inward feelings that attempt to transcribe subtle emotions into tangible and visually tactile images. Personal sentiments are always present in Pei’s atmospheric drawings, wrapped with rational narration to catalyse intimate subjective experiences and memory fragments.

Yi Chin CHEN, Winners at The Illustration Exhibition
Born in winter and raised in Nantou, a scenic town in Taiwan, CHEN now lives in Taipei. She uses her art to explore the true meanings of life. CHEN 's studio is located at the sixth floor of an old apartment, a place rich in sunshine and breezes. Believing that “painting has made one a better person”, she aims to create artworks that calm and soothe both herself and her audiences. Aside from painting, straightening things up and walking are some other interests of hers.

Hui-Yin HSUEH, Winners at The Illustration Exhibition
Illustrator, sometimes pitching clay. Most of her works are inspired by people, plants and daily life scenes.

Wei Chun DAI The Night Market

Wei-Chun DAI, Winners at The Illustration Exhibition
Born in Taipei, Wei-Chun Dai loves drawing since childhood. After several years as an art teacher, she has worked on various design projects in her own studio for more than 20 years. However, with her passion for painting, she has gradually shifted her focus to artistic creation in recent years. In 2021, DAI was selected by the Bologna Illustrators Exhibition with her series of illustrations "The Night Market", which will be published as her debut picture book.

Poppi Li, The Children-Spectators - The 2021 selected illustrators
Poppy Li is a Taiwanese self-taught freelance illustrator based in London. She graduated with bachelor degree in theater arts and loves to express herself in a variety of ways like digital and traditional media, gouache, acrylic, animation, and ceramics at the moment. She loves fantasy and enjoys developing her own ideas and stories into books such as picture books or graphic novels. She is greatly inspired by nature, enjoys a sense of calm, and all the mystery tales in the universe. She enjoys going on small adventures to observe the natural world around her and get lost in small details.

Yi-Wen HUANG, Winners at The Illustration Exhibition
An illustrator and a children's author, Huang Yi-wen currently lives in New Taipei City, Taiwan. As she spends half of her time reading and the other half painting, she merges the two together in her dreamland. Huang has been awarded prizes at numerous competitions, including The Bologna Children's Book Fair 2021, Hsin-Yi Children Literature Award, and the first KPL Picture Books Sprouting Awards organised by Kaohsiung Main Public Library. She also participated in the first human rights picture book workshop organised by the National Human Rights Museum.

Arwen HUANG Wake Up Daddy

Arwen HUANG, Winners at The Illustration Exhibition
Arwen Huang(b. 1994), who is known as an illustrator, comic artist and picture book author. Arwen studied Fine Arts at Taipei National University of Arts, graduating in 2016. In 2018, Arwen graduated from Cambridge School of Art (Anglia Ruskin University) with a Distinction in an MA in Children's Book Illustration. Her comic work BORED has been shortlisted in New Talents Contest of Angouleme International Comic Festival. Arwen’s first picture book Have You Seen Mr. Robinson? was published in 2019. Her newest book Wake Up! Daddy! is going to be published in 2021.

Wei-Hsuan CHEN, Winners at The Illustration Exhibition
Born in Taipei, Wei-Hsuan CHEN now lives in Tokyo. Vibrant in colours, her works are seen in many exhibitions, magazines, merchandises and ceramic works, while fauna and flora are her favourite subjects. CHEN's original illustrations have been recognized by American Illustration and The Bologna Children's Book Fair. She likes travelling and enjoys nature, books, and tasty food.

Animo CHEN, Special Mention of The BolognaRagazzi Award POETRY - 2021 Special Category
Animo has a degree in Visual Communication Design from Da-Yeh University in Taiwan and an MA from the Fine Arts Department, Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague, Czech Republic. His work is as diverse as it is prolific. With experience as a still photographer, TV and film art director, animation director, and a professional illustrator, Animo excels at cerebral imagery and piercing prose, and his work is often featured in periodicals and on book covers. He was also featured in the Illustrators Exhibition at the 2019 Bologna Children's Book Fair. Published at the tail end of 2019, The Short Elegy is the first-ever exclusive collection of comics by Animo which won the 2020 BolognaRagazzi Award for Comics - Young Adult.

Lian-En LIN, Winners of The BolognaRagazzi Award - Fiction 2021
Lian is a freelancer illustrator born and raised in Taiwan. She loves reasoning novel and children’s art . These are all inspirations for her work. She draws something experienced, and something about her imagination.