Festival Theme: Cute Power

The 2026 Tua-Tiu-Tiann International Festival of Arts takes “Cute Power” as its annual theme. 

This theme is not proposed simply as an exploration of popular culture, but as a response to the conditions of the contemporary world.

We live in an era shaped simultaneously by the threat of war, accelerating technological change, and economic uncertainty. Together, these pressures are reshaping the way we experience the world: people are increasingly inclined toward anxiety, vigilance, efficiency, and self-protection, while gradually losing the patience to appreciate small things, everyday life, gentle relationships, and subtle emotions amid the speed and pressure of contemporary life. In such an era, art should not merely represent crises; it should also propose cultural forms that allow us to retain our capacity for softness, imagination, and connection.

For this reason, this year’s festival presents “Cute Power” as its annual theme, proposing that cuteness is not merely a style, commodity, or popular trend, but a form of cultural power. It makes us willing to draw closer, to love, to stay, to protect, and to experience the world anew. Though seemingly small, the power of cuteness can preserve the softer side of humanity in times of intense pressure, resisting coldness, numbness, and dehumanization.

As the festival’s main exhibition, “The Origin of Taiwanese Cuteness” further poses a question: if cuteness is a form of modern cultural power, does this power also have a historical point of origin in Taiwan? If the 1920s marked a crucial moment in Taiwan’s modernity, might the modern sensibility of Taiwanese cuteness also trace its early emergence back to that era?