Treasure Hill Artist Village

Treasure Hill is one of Taipei's most unusual cultural spaces — a hillside of self-built houses along the Xindian River that was an illegal settlement from the 1940s (occupied by military veterans and their families who had followed the KMT from mainland China) and has been converted into an artist village where residents and visiting artists live alongside the remaining original inhabitants.

The village's architecture — narrow paths climbing the hillside between houses that were built incrementally over decades, with additions, staircases, and rooftop gardens added as families grew — creates a labyrinthine landscape unlike anything else in Taipei's grid of wide boulevards and apartment blocks. The art installations (often site-specific works that respond to the village's architecture and history) are scattered through the houses and pathways, and the experience of discovering art in someone's former kitchen or on a retired veteran's rooftop is what makes Treasure Hill unique.