“Decompression,” the 2024 Asian Art Biennial forum, got underway Dec. 14 in central Taiwan’s Taichung City, bringing together curators, participating artists and researchers from home and abroad to exchange views on a wide range of topics complementing the ninth edition of the art event.
According to the Ministry of Culture, the forum’s title references a diving technique that gradually releases inert gases from body tissues as a metaphor for resilience under pressure. The in-depth panel discussions aimed to break established norms by raising critical voices and proposing unconventional modes of cultural production in an increasingly turbulent world, the ministry added.
In the “Rice and Breadfruit: An Acquired Taste of Empire” session, panelists discussed global and local food systems and their alternatives and impacts, while “Art, Politics and Communion in the Age of Radical Appropriation” unveiled how art helps sustain systemic inequality and envisioned a new kind of artistic practice that would support a more egalitarian future.
This was followed by “Breath and Belonging: Navigating Migration, Memory and Cinema,” in which panelists described how they incorporated the themes of diaspora and migration in their politically charged work. Finally, “Toy Volcano” examined the skepticism and paranoia of technical media and the parallels between physical landscapes through the lens of animation theory and machinic delusions.
Launched in 2007 by National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts in central Taiwan’s Taichung City, the biennial event aims to explore how a multiplicity of perspectives has come to inform contemporary reality and how that reality, characterized by a high degree of ambiguity, has in turn enriched Asian cultural perspectives.
Themed “How To Hold Your Breath” and running through March 2, 2025, this year’s festival showcases 83 works by 35 artists and groups from over 20 countries. Starting Dec. 21, the biennial will screen the “How Breath Moves” cinematic program featuring eight films and pre- and post-screening discussions. (SFC-E)
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from Taiwan Today – Top News