Jason Wu Collaborates with Calligrapher Tong Yang-Tze for his Spring 2025 Collection.

The first dual-artist commission created specifically for the M+ Facade, Ink | Pulse is a live generative work that is a cross-disciplinary collaboration between acclaimed Taiwanese calligraphy artist Tong Yang-Tze and Hong Kong media artist Chris Cheung (h0nh1m). The algorithm-driven commission is inspired by and based on Tong Yang-Tze's Silent Music series, which are 100 ink-based pieces collected during Tong's creative process over the years. Renditions of Tong’s masterful strokes, dots, and markings are animated into pulsating apparitions and movements, as though sight-reading the artist’s soundless graphical score.

In their newest collaboration Ink, choreographer Huang Yi and audiovisiual pioneer Ryoichi Kurokawa dismantle and reconstruct the lines from a hundred artworks in renowned calligrapher Tong Yang-Tze’s “Silent Music” series, exploring the various texture between body, sound, visual and space. Hovering between delicate and frantic dynamics, Yi digs deeper into his cultural roots and reveals a wild movement language, turning dancers’ bodies into brushes that paint and leave marks on stage. With speed and a ferocious vocabulary, dancers churn like a vortex in one moment, only to become flowing liquid in the next. Kurokawa transforms the inkblots into luminous tracks, echoing and merging with the unique brushstrokes of Tong, constructing a continuous flow of paintings via stunning holographic projection. Combining Yi’s explosive and precise language and Kurokawa’s meticulous and sophisticated artistry, Ink is a work that crosses borders and fuses analog and digital, reflecting the harmonic tension between the realms of ancient practice and future design. Ink was co-commissioned by the National Taichung Theater and National Theater, Taipei in Taiwan and had its world premiere in June 2023.

Concerning that written language is the root of an ethnicity, Taiwan's contemporary artist Tong Yang-Tze initiated From Ink to Apparel in 2016. Tong calls for the society's attention to the value and legacy of Chinese characters when western trends have taken on as the mainstream, and strives to revitalize the art of calligraphy in the Internet era. Tong sought to bring forth a boundary-crossing challenge to calligraphy and fashion design by presenting a platform that showcases creativity and cultural heritage.The Chinese title for From Ink to Apparel is 讀衣 (du-yi, literally “reading clothes”), which not only signifies that there are characters and messages hidden in the apparel, but also invites the audience to reflect upon fashion in the context of their own culture when viewing the exhibited items. The Chinese pronunciation of From Ink to Apparel, du-yi, resembles “uniqueness” in Mandarin Chinese, indicating that the combining of calligraphy and fashion creates distinction and novelty. The fiveyear project, positioned as a voice of fashion from the east, invites fashion designers in the Chinese-speaking world to create pieces inspired by Tong's calligraphy works. Such attempt not only brings cultural depth to fashion design, but also exposes the viewers to the charm of calligraphy in the exhibition and encourage them to treasure the value of Chinese characters.

Commissioned by the National Theater and Concert Hall of National Performing Arts Center to curate the crossover theater performance “SAO,” which was premiered in TIFA 2014.The performance was again staged　in new editions “SAO+” in 2015, and “SAO 2016” in 2016. The creation by globally acclaimed artist TONG Yang-Tze is a crossover play combining her calligraphic contours with multi-media, videos, jazz music and contemporary dance. The visual elements are originated from 100 calligraphic pieces. With the transformation of multi-media technology, the calligraphic contours are changed from 2D into 3D, combining with live jazz music improvisation and contemporary dance to form a brand new interpretation of the calligraphic art. “Calligraphic art is a performance of lines, as well as music phrases and bodily motions of a dancer. Hopefully the sensations of the audience will be stimulated as soon as the performance begins, and they’ll be eager to rush onto the stage to join the dance and music with the dancers and musicians in the end,” said TONG.

For the first time, Tong Yang-Tze combined calligraphy and sculpture to create a three-dimensional “Cheng” character. She used yew and nanmu to create the theme of “Cheng” (Sincerity, Honesty) has taken on contemporary significance in Taiwanese society in recent years and is more like a profound advice to society. It is not only a work of art, but also a value that Tong Yang-Tze believes that Taiwan can share with the world. Calligraphy sculpture “Cheng” toured evolving into a seven-year traveling exhibition “Cheng–A Calligraphy Sculpture on the Move” across Taiwan, and still ongoing.

A poster exhibition of Asian designers & Tong Yang-Tze calligraphy in 2011 Taipei World Design EXPO.