Lin Yu-chang, the former mayor of Keelung City, former interior minister of Taiwan and former secretary-general of the Democratic Progressive Party, visited a Taiwanese artist residency in Bushwick on November 1 and encouraged the Taiwanese, Taiwanese American and American artists gathered there to use their work to introduce Taiwan to the world, the Epoch Times and World Journal reported in Chinese.

The morning gathering brought Lin together with nearly 30 Taiwanese American and international artists at Brooklyn Artists Studio, at 275 Wyckoff Avenue, the Epoch Times reported. World Journal reported the visit as taking place at a Brooklyn artist residency in Bushwick run by the same founder. The event was co-hosted by Daniel Chang, president of the Taiwanese Chamber of Commerce of New York; Patrick Huang, the studio’s founder; and Luchia Meihua Lee, executive director of the Taiwanese American Arts Council, the Epoch Times reported.

Lin told the artists that ordinary Americans are concerned day to day with gas prices and daily life, and that the work and exhibitions of overseas artists are the best way to communicate with American society, the Epoch Times reported. “Artistic creation and exhibitions are a very good medium, a medium for communicating with ordinary Americans, a hundred times more useful than political propaganda,” Lin said, according to World Journal, in Bushwick Daily’s translation from Chinese. The Epoch Times reported the same line. “The most important thing is to let the American public understand and know Taiwan better.”