Decompression: 2024 Asian Art Biennial Forum
Screening Program How Breath Moves

The 9th Asian Art Biennial, hosted by the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (NTMoFA), takes “How to Hold Your Breath” as the curatorial prompt, bringing together 35 groups of artists to present a total of 83 works between the dates 16 November 2024 – 2 March 2025.

Launching on December 21, the screening program “How Breath Moves” in collaboration with Asia University Museum of Modern Art, provides critical historical contexts that enrich understanding of the exhibition’s core concerns through a range of artistic strategies including documentary essay, performance, and animation. Through the eight films by 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), the Biennial invites viewers to take a deep breath, listen to the inaudible, and retune to the metabolic rhythms of our bodies and the planet. 

The screening program follows “Decompression: 2024 Asian Art Biennial Forum” which took place on December 14. Unfolding through a series of presentations and panel discussions, the Forum dove into discourses of migration, activism, self-critique, solidarity and empire, sometimes swimming against established norms, to raise critical voices and propose alternative modes of cultural production in an increasingly turbulent world.

The Forum was divided into four panels:   

Panel 1, “Rice and Breadfruit: An Acquired Taste of Empire”, was moderated by Francis Maravillas, Programme Leader and Senior Lecturer, Art Histories and Curatorial Practices: Asia and the World in LASALLE College of Arts Singapore. Speakers included participating artists Nathalie Muchamad (based in Mayotte) and Chu Hao Pei (based in Singapore). This conversation delved into global and local food systems, their impact on social organization, alternatives and sustainability, climate and ecology, science and biodiversity, identity and community.

Moderated by Korean curator and Executive Director of the Busan Biennale Organizing Committee Kim Seong-Youn, Panel 2 “Art, Politics and Communion in the Age of Radical Appropriation” featured Ariane Sutthavong, curator and co-founder of inappropriate BOOK CLUB, Bangkok, and Lu Pei-Yi, Associate Professor, Critical and Curatorial Studies of Contemporary Art, National Taipei University of Education. Sutthavong unveiled how art helps to sustain a system that produces dramatic social inequalities that deny a dignified life to many while imagining the possibility of another kind of artistic practice to support a more hopeful future. Lu explored the concept of “art/movement” and the value of “communion” as a method, proposing to treat “I” as a plural to create a common ground open to others.

“Breath and Belonging: Navigating Migration, Memory, and Cinema”, Panel 3, was moderated by Chao Hsin-Yi, Assistant Professor, Program of Digital Humanities and Creative Industries & Graduate Institute of Library and Information Science, National Chung Hsing University. Participating artists Cici Wu (based between New York and Hong Kong) and Pallavi Paul (based in Delhi) questioned cultural memory, migration, activism, experimental film, and belonging in their poetic yet politically charged art-making.

Introduced by Tsai Hwa-Jen, Assistant Professor, Institute of Social Research and Cultural Studies, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Indian artist Mochu presented “Toy Volcano” as the final panel. Initially produced in 2019, Toy Volcano is a video-lecture-performance exploring the skepticism and paranoia surrounding technical media, the parallels between the landscapes of our physical world, animation theory, machinic delusions, and the curious concept of portable holes within the context of a forgotten manga universe.

After the panels, the Forum concluded with a Roundtable Discussion. Moderated by Filipino curator Merv Espina, the panelists included Taiwanese curator Fang Yen Hsiang, Korean curator Haeju Kim, and all the Forum moderators, including Francis Maravillias, Kim Seong-Youn, Chao Hsin-Yi, and Tsai Hwa-Jen.

The 2024 Asian Art Biennial will last until March 2, 2025. For more information, please visit asianartbiennial.ntmofa.gov.tw or follow the Asian Art Biennial on Facebook and Instagram.