Story Lamp: From Local Stories to Shared Worlds
Maker Faire Bay Area 2026
September 25th-27th
Story Lamp is a community-based storytelling project built from light, handmade mechanisms, moving images, and personal memories.
Each lamp begins with a story. Children, families, and community members translate memories of home, everyday life, family, and place into drawings and images. As the handmade structures rotate, these images are projected through light and shadow, turning individual memories into something others can see and experience.
The project began in Taiwan as an educational experiment bringing younger and older generations together through storytelling and making. Since then, it has gradually developed into a trans-Pacific network of exchanges and collaborations, connecting communities across Taiwan, Japan, Northern Thailand, the United States, and Canada. Moving between Asia and North America, Story Lamp has become a way of asking what happens when stories rooted in one place are carried into another.
For Maker Faire Bay Area 2026, the project is joined by Joyride to Fly (藝・起飛), an interdisciplinary cultural and creative research team from the Department of Visual Communication Design, National Taiwan University of Arts, directed by Professor Pei-Hsuan Su. Bringing together practices in visual art, music, design, and technology-based art, the collaboration opens another layer of experimentation around how stories can be seen, heard, built, and shared.
At Maker Faire, visitors will encounter a large illuminated installation alongside handmade storytelling devices and simple opportunities to make and participate. Rather than presenting Story Lamp as a collection of finished objects, we hope the space feels like a living meeting point—where stories from across the Pacific can arrive, overlap, and continue through new encounters.
Project Credits｜
Original Concept & Project Head: Yu-He Chen Co-creator: Yan-Jie Keng Project Team: Wan Fu Elementary School Student participants: Wan Fu Elementary School Grade 5–6 students Community Partner: Meihua Elementary School, Northern Thailand.
Guest Project Team: entitled as Light On• Narrating Taiwanese Life, from the Department of Visual Communication Design, National Taiwan University of Arts. Project Director: Pei-Hsuan Su Participating students: (In Stroke Order of Surnames) Tien, Fu-Jun / Hirata Hana / Jocelyn Ho, En-Qi / Li, Ruen-Shin / Lin, Yong-Xin / Hong, Jhun-Siang / Kao, Chieh / Chen, Yen-Chen / Yu, Yu-Wen / Huang, Zi-Xuan / Huang, Yan-Yun / Wong, In-Dak / Yang, Jerry / Liu, Chih-Yuan / Cheng, Pei-Yi / Luo, Qi / Kung, I-Fang
Special Guests：Su, Yu-Han from Taipei First Girls High School Grade 11; Wu, Di & Liu, Chih-Chao.
Story Lamp Collective
Story Lamp Collective is a community-based creative group that brings together storytelling, handmade construction, light installation, and participatory art experiences. The project began in Taiwan through collaborations between children, families, educators, and local communities. By combining storytelling with hands-on making, the group creates illuminated narrative installations that explore memory, culture, daily life, and intergenerational connection. Over time, the project has expanded through workshops, exhibitions, and cultural exchanges with communities in different locations. The collective continues to explore how local stories can become shared experiences through light, participation, and collaborative making.
