The City Is Your Museum
Keelung For A Walk sets out to transform Keelung into a “living ecomuseum”.
An ecomuseum is a museum without walls.
Rather than being contained in a single building, it unfolds through a city’s streets, neighborhoods, rituals, and everyday life.
In Keelung, the museum exists where people live, work, remember, and gather.
Through cultural sites, daily routines, local traditions, and collective memory, the city itself becomes the exhibition.
What is the Keelung Living Museum
The Keelung Living Museum is inspired by the concept of the ecomuseum—a place-based museum rooted in a specific geographic and cultural context.
After years of walking tours through Keelung’s old town (Ren’ai District), we began to imagine a different kind of museum: one that carries the city’s cultural memory and everyday life across multiple locations.
Instead of a single venue, the Living Museum adopts a satellite model, connecting various sites throughout the city. By reactivating underused or forgotten spaces through creative approaches, these places become site-specific archives—holding stories, memories, and local knowledge.
Our aim is to build long-term relationships with local communities through collaboration with neighborhood shops, shared storytelling, and everyday social interaction. In doing so, we strengthen community networks, support local cultural industries, and work toward a sustainable model of cultural revitalization in Keelung.
A Collaborative Cultural Ecosystem
The Keelung Living Museum is developed through collaboration.
We work with community organizations, local industries, government partners, artists, scholars, and cultural practitioners to build a shared cultural ecosystem—one that reconnects Keelung’s past with its present, and places the city back on the cultural map through lived experience rather than display alone.
The Memory Archival Project
At the heart of the Keelung Living Museum is the Memory Archival Project.
This ongoing initiative is dedicated to collecting, preserving, and sharing the memories and cultural experiences of Keelung. We invite residents, former residents, and anyone with a personal connection to the city to take part in writing Keelung’s story together.
Memories may take many forms—words, photographs, videos, or fragments of everyday life. Each contribution becomes part of the Living Museum’s growing archive.
Cultural Documentation by Our Team
Alongside community contributions, our team carries out long-term cultural documentation, focusing on:
These records help capture everyday life and local perspectives that are often absent from official histories.
Faces of Keelung
experience the city with the locals who know it best
The Living Museum Across our Website
The Keelung Living Museum is not limited to one page. You will encounter it across our website !
Ghost Festival project
Click Here to SeeTogether, these experiences form a museum without walls.
Memories of Keelung’s Golden Age
Through personal stories and archival materials, the Living Museum also reflects on Keelung’s golden years as a port city—its maritime culture, working neighborhoods, and social life shaped by the sea
What Does the Keelung Living Museum Do?
The Keelung Living Museum works across multiple layers of the city:
Reconnecting
people with historical buildings and old neighborhoods
Presenting
local living spaces, personal stories, and community narratives
Designing
cultural walking routes that offer immersive, place-based experiences
Archiving
residents’ stories to portray everyday life in Keelung
Leading
guided visits that connect visitors with neighborhoods, industries, and local residents
Together, these actions turn the city itself into a living, evolving museum.
A Living Ritual: The Ghost Festival
Among Keelung’s many cultural traditions, the Ghost Festival stands out as a living ritual that continues to shape the city’s identity.
As part of the Living Museum, we have selected nine sites connected to the Ghost Festival’s history and practices. Through audio guidance and archival materials, visitors can explore these locations at their own pace and uncover the stories behind the festival.
The Ghost Festival Tour
To trace the cultural and historical contexts of the Keelung Ghost Festival, we have curated a self-guided journey across key sites associated with its traditions.
Featured sites
Xuchuan River, Qing’an Temple, Zhupu Altar… and more
Duration
About 2 hours
Note
Bring your own headphones
Experience the Ghost Festival
Passcode: museum
The Keelung Memory Archival Project: A Call for Stories
We invite you to share your Keelung stories—whether through text, photos, or videos. Your contributions may become part of the Living Museum’s archive and appear in future exhibitions
How to Participate:
✔ Follow Keelung For A Walk on Instagram for updates
✔ Message us on the Keelung For A Walk Facebook page and tell us what you’d like to share
✔ Fill out the online memory-sharing form linked below