2024 Asian Art Biennial Announces the Grand Opening

Organised by National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (NTMoFA), the Asian Art Biennial has opened on 16 November 2024 and will be on display until 2 March 2025. Co-curated by Fang Yen Hsiang (Taiwan), Anne Davidian (Armenia), Merv Espina (the Philippines), Haeju Kim (South Korea), and Asli Seven (Turkey), the Biennial will feature works from 35 local and international artists under the title of "How to Hold Your Breath", inviting viewers to take a deep breath and hold their breath while imagining a new future.
The title of the 2024 Asian Art Biennial, "How to Hold Your Breath," evokes the act of voluntarily pausing a vital function, creating a state of anticipation. A twist on the saying "don't hold your breath," a warning not to expect change soon, is inverted here to suggest latent hope.
Taking a deep breath and holding it anchors us in the present moment. As the world unravels into new sublevels of rock bottom, we continue to migrate and navigate through the din and dust, between place and displacement in this late capitalist fallout. This act of calming the breath and setting the mind prepares for transitioning from one reality to another, in a movement of transformation. It is an interval, to listen to the inaudible and retune with the metabolic rhythms of our bodies and the planet.
Through a variety of media, the artworks presented in the Biennial challenge progressive and universal notions of time, revealing instead how histories are tied to people, places, and positions.
Marwa Arsanios, an artist and researcher based between Beirut and Berlin, introduces a new chapter of her multifaceted project Who is Afraid of Ideology, examining entrenched ownership ideologies and proposing non-expropriative practices related to natural resources, agriculture, housing, and knowledge. For the Taiwan edition, the project collaborates with curator Tsai Ming-Jiun, artists and writers Wu Ke-Wei and Tsai Yu-Jou (Kuanntian Studio), and farmers from Tainan to convene reading sessions and a public conversation during the Biennial's opening. This program invites audiences to dismantle possessive imaginaries and explore alternative ways of living harmoniously with nature. The exhibition features a film documenting the transformation of private land in Lebanon into common plot, alongside textiles and drawings, connecting these struggles to a broader historical perspective. Displayed in Taichung as city banners, the Chart for the Usership of the Land, offers a poetic protocol for new forms of communal property.
Yoshinori Niwa's practice intervenes in public spaces to unravel societal conditions and create new horizons by pushing economic and ideological systems to absurdity. Among artist's earlier works, two new commissions have been produced in Taichung specifically for the Biennial. In Purchasing a Rice Ball at Convenience Stores for 24 Hours, Niwa repeatedly buys the same rice ball he already owns, questioning ideas of ownership and wealth. Requesting People in Taiwan Who I Met by Chance to Declare if They Die, Taiwan Will Disappear revisits a past project where individuals proclaimed identification with their nation. Niwa revives this in Taichung, questioning whether a country is defined by its people or geopolitical status.
The Unseen Presence is a recent series by Milay Mavaliw, conveyed through woven installations that explore the connections between family and tribe, transcending time and space. Inspired by the ritual blessings and prayers her Puyuma shaman grandmother performed before Milay embarked on her journeys, these became a spiritual force that accompanies her, anchoring her to her tribe. In her works, organic lines and forms interweave and propagate throughout the space as a manifestation of energy. Viewers are invited to immerse themselves in the present moment, in a space where collective forces are summoned.
Hwayeon Nam's film 2 loosely follows the traces of two women, Choi Seung-Hee (1911-1969) and Tsai Jui-Yueh (1921-2005), two pioneers of modern dance in Korea and Taiwan, respectively. Beyond their artistic achievements, the lives of these two women, separated by a decade, also reflect the trajectory of modern and contemporary Asian history, marked by colonialism and Cold War ideology. In this film, two narrators, two historical figures, two actors, two cities, and two houses are arranged in a disjointed yet interconnected manner.
In 2019, Julia Sariesetiati and her collaborators proposed a platform named "PulangPergi", designed to share experiences between migrant workers. East Java is a major source of migrant workers in sectors like childcare, elder care, and domestic assistance. During her visit to PERTAKINA Indonesia, Julia also visited Tulungagung and Kediri, collaborating with former migrant workers to document everyday vocabulary and instructions used in their jobs. This documentation aims to bridge the gap between pre-departure language training and real-world work experience.
Working across diverse media-including large fabric paintings, cartoon drawings, and animations-Woosung Lee captures memories both distant and intimate. This exhibition presents a blend of earlier works alongside new paintings created after his 2024 visit to Taiwan. It features scenes and figures from Korean cities like Seoul and Gwangju, alongside observations from Taipei and Taichung. By spotlighting individual characters and simultaneously emphasizing collective solidarity, Lee emphasizes both personal identity and communal strength.
The Biennial will launch a series of public programs starting from its opening on 16 November, including artist talks, collective conversations, experimental performances, participation workshops, guided tours, screening programs.
The first exciting event will be Andrius Arutiunian's Armen, a speculative investigation of diasporic histories drawing from the artist's collection of Armenian music. Reminiscent of Yerevan taxis blasting local pop, it is published on an audio cassette and experienced during car rides in Taichung throughout the Biennial's opening day.
Sharon Chin will present a participatory performance Portal on the opening night. This performance invites audiences to light oil lamps made from alcohol bottles discarded on an eroded beach in the artist's town. Originally conceived as a celebration of two mangrove trees growing on the beach, it is now a memorial, as the trees were uprooted due to extreme weather just a few months before. We face transformations - ecological, social, political - on an unprecedented, species-level scale. This work invokes the spirit of a place for insight on the inner transformations required for us to collectively weather this change.
"How Breath Moves," the screening program of the 2024 Asian Art Biennial, imagines breath as a collective cinematic device, a shared source of life and rhythm, moving across our bodies to technologies of light and projection, through life, death, and rebirth, to explore the production, translation, and circulation of images, sounds, memory, and collective storytelling. Through a range of artistic strategies - including documentary essay, performance video, and animation - the eight films in this program provide critical historical contexts that enrich understanding of the exhibition's core concerns. Pallavi Paul's How Love Moves unpacks the intimate connection between breath, soil, and the hope and sorrow embodied in a gravekeeper's daily life in India. The short animated film A Turtle in Ten Seconds by Rojda Tugrul, which narrates the history of dammed rivers in Mesopotamia through the voice of an extinct river turtle and cyclical movements, offering a poignant reflection on ecological loss and the stories water can tell.
For the latest event information, please visit asianartbiennial.ntmofa.gov.tw or follow the Asian Art Biennial on Facebook and Instagram.
About Asian Art Biennial
Being one of the most representative art biennials in Asia, the Asian Art Biennial is an important bi-annual exhibition hosted by the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts. Since its establishment in 2007, it has been committed to presenting the development of contemporary art with an emphasis on Asia. Asian Art Biennials in recent years have convened curators with cross-disciplinary backgrounds to help shape curatorial mechanism through collective dialogue. Invitations for the participation of Asian artists from diverse cultures and wide-ranging perspectives has enabled the creation of a platform for interaction. asianartbiennial.ntmofa.gov.tw
About National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (NTMoFA)
Located in the West District of Taichung City, Taiwan, the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (NTMoFA) was inaugurated in 1988. It covers a total area of about 10 hectares and is the largest public art museum in Taiwan. With visual art as its main focus, NTMoFA highlights the collection, research, exhibition and educational promotion of modern and contemporary art in Taiwan, and is dedicated to providing visitors with a diverse and professional space for appreciating art. www.ntmofa.gov.tw
 
How to Hold Your Breath - 2024 Asian Art Biennial
Exhibition Period｜16 November 2024 - 2 March 2025
Venue｜National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (2, Sec. 1, Wuquan West Road, Taichung)
Curatorial Team｜Fang Yen Hsiang, Anne Davidian, Merv Espina, Haeju Kim, Asli Seven
Participating Artists｜Noor Abed, Asian Feminist Studio for Art and Research (AFSAR), Marwa Arsanios, Andrius Arutiunian, Sharon Chin, Chu Hao Pei, Kiri Dalena, Fang Wei-Wen, Tao Leigh Goffe, Hit Man Gurung, Mashinka Firunts Hakopian, Emre Hüner, Saodat Ismailova, Maiko Jinushi, Cetus Kuo Chin-Yun, Woosung Lee, Milay Mavaliw, Nathalie Muchamad, Hwayeon Nam, Yoshinori Niwa, Pak Sheung Chuen, Nefeli Papadimouli, Natalia Papaeva, Ri, Julia Sarisetiati, Kirill Savchenkov, Aziza Shadenova, Yehwan Song, Trương Quế Chi & Nguyễn Phương Linh, Wang Yu-Song, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Jasmin Werner, Cici Wu, Nil Yalter, Gary Zhexi Zang
Artists in the Screening Program｜Bani Abidi, Noor Abuarafeh, Chingiz Aidarov, Richard Fung, Rojda Tugrul, Pallavi Paul, Sanaz Sohrabi, Your Bros. Filmmaking Group (So Yo-Hen, Tien Zong-Yuan, Liao Hsiu-Hui)
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