Taipei Exchanges
What you are willing to give up for exchange to fulfill your dreams?
Doris’s Café is a homey space where people could relax and enjoy the smoothing afternoon sun and daydreaming. The aroma of coffee and home-baked desserts fills the air. The café is meant to be as elegant as its owner, Doris, but has been turned upside down by her sister, Josie. Ignoring Doris’s protest, Josie starts exchanging goods with costumers in the shop. Objects of various kinds begin to accumulate; discarded by their previous owners, they prove to be treasures in the eyes of others. The activity of swapping goods upstages Doris’s coffee-making and becomes the biggest attraction of the shop.
One day a man walks in by chance. He loves brownie with espresso and that happens to be DorisÂ’s favourite combination as well. He brings 35 bars of soaps from 35 different cities in the hope of trading them for something special. Every time he comes in he orders a cup of coffee and tells a story of one of the soaps. These exotic tales fill DorisÂ’s mind with beautiful images and she materialises them in her paintings.
In the end, Doris is willing to swap her heart for these enchanting tales - she longs to see these cities with her own eyesÂ…During the process of this exchange, what exactly does the man get from the soaps on which his memories are engraved?