Taipei: A large-scale international art project that includes paintings from eight Taiwanese artists is on display at the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts (WAM), United States, inviting visitors to ponder the nature of peace.

According to Focus Taiwan, "Lee Mingwei: Our Peaceable Kingdom" is curated by Taiwanese contemporary visual artist Lee Mingwei and inspired by American folk painter Edward Hicks' famous work "Peaceable Kingdom," which Hicks created around 1833 and is in the museum's collection. The exhibition opened on Saturday and features 42 paintings from a lineup of international artists, including eight from Taiwan, according to the ministry, which supported the exhibition, along with the U.S.-based Fletcher Foundation.

The Taiwanese artists featured in the exhibition are Jeng Jundian, Huang Ko-wei, Jian Yi-hong, Yen Yu-ting, Yeh Tsai-wei, Hsiao Pei-i, Yuyu Chen, and Wu Ta-Kuang. The exhibition also comprises works from Indonesian, German, French, Australian, and American artists, including Worcester locals Emmanuel Manu Opoku, Kat O'Connor, and Susan Hong-Sammons, providing local perspectives for the mental exercise about peace.

Following its debut in 2020 at the Gropius Bau in Berlin, the project has been gradually expanded and has now become a "family tree" of artists across boundaries and generations. WAM Director Matthias Waschek underlined the significance of the project being displayed at the home of the piece that inspired it, noting that the exhibition interweaves 19th-century folk painting and pluralistic views by artists from around the globe. He also invited visitors to ponder what peace means to the city.

The exhibition runs until February 1, with Lee scheduled to give a talk at the museum on Oct. 19 on the show and the concept behind the project. Lee Mingwei is an internationally acclaimed Taiwanese artist whose participatory installations and performance projects often invite audiences to interact in open settings, exploring themes of trust, intimacy, and self-awareness. Lee's art has been exhibited at institutions including the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Centre Pompidou in Paris, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Tate Modern in London, Gropius Bau, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney.