Foreword

The Taipei Biennial 2025, Whispers on the Horizon, presents a breadth of contemporary artistic vocabularies, exploring the profound desire that eludes easy description yet drives our every action: yearning. Curators Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath have crafted a backdrop for this biennial that draws on Taiwan’s complex and interwoven history — from its colonial past and struggles of identity to its shifting political landscape.

The Taipei Biennial began in 1998, under the leadership of then-TFAM director Lin Mun-Lee. Fumio Nanjo served as the curator, offering a profound interpretation of the Asia-Pacific region, with a particular emphasis on how flourishing economic development influenced the many aspects of life, from individual relationships to collective interests. Since then, the Taipei Biennial gradually has established a place within the international network of art biennials.

Now in its 14th edition, the Taipei Biennial has consistently focused on our changing world, exploring how contemporary art reflects reality, while seeking new creative possibilities within it. The Biennial has also increasingly grappled with those issues that deeply resonate with us all — global concerns that impact our daily lives — incorporating them into a broader vision that imagines new ways to exist within the world.

Whispers on the Horizon draws inspiration from early 20th-century paintings in the Taipei Fine Arts Museum collection, as well as artifacts from the National Palace Museum, imbuing “yearning” with greater historical texture and cultural depth, and reminding us that yearning is not a single emotional experience, but a reverberation across space and time. These objects of yearning open a conversation, forging connections between Taiwan’s past and the wider world, between personal memories and collective history, between the evanescent and the enduring. These works are not merely treasures, just as yearning is not simply reminiscence. It also faces the future. It is a driving force, an act of reaching out to something ineffable yet irreplaceable.

Whispers on the Horizon offers no conclusions and sets no boundaries. The existence of the past is not an ending. On the contrary, we can make use of the past to open another dimension. We can create a substantive present and build a bridge to the future. And these convey the interconnected meanings of “yearning,” forming a curved yet eternally unbroken horizon — we are still reaching out, still searching.

It is our hope that the current Taipei Biennial will present an axis of time encompassing yesterday, today and tomorrow, which blossoms into a whole series of explorations that reveal the past, shape the present, and transform the future. Just as the theme Whispers on the Horizon is not about arriving at a destination, but about those desires that are ungraspable.

Li-Chen Loh
Director, Taipei Fine Arts Museum

FOREWORD | Li-Chen Loh

Essays
　WHISPERS ON THE HORIZON
　A MAPPING OF THE CURATORIAL CONCEPT OF THE 2025 TAIPEI BIENNIAL
　| Sam Bardaouil, Till Fellrath
　COLLECTIVE YEARNING: TAIWAN AS EURYDICE
　| Huang Chien-Hung
　THE SENSE OF YEARNING IN TAIWANESE LITERATURE
　| Choi Mal-Soon
　YEARNING TAIWAN: A CENTURY OF STRUGGLE FOR A VOICE
　| Su Chih-Heng
　THE WHISPER LINGERS, BUT DARE WE FOLLOW ITS VOICE?
　| Sam Bardaouil, Till Fellrath

Artists and Works
　CIOU ZIH-YAN
　HENRIQUE OLIVEIRA
　ANNA JERMOLAEWA
　FRAN CHANG
　YU JI
　LIN SHOU-YI
　OMAR MISMAR
　CHANG CHAO-TANG
　LI DYAO-LWUN
　SYU CHING-PWO
　ÁLVARO URBANO
　NARI WARD

　TOBIAS ZIELONY
　CHEN CHIN
　AFRA AL DHAHERI
　YOUNG-JUN TAK
　SHIY DE-JINN
　ROHINI DEVASHER
　HERA BÜYÜKTAŞCIYAN
　HO HUAI-SHUO
　IVANA BAŠIĆ
　SYLVIE SELIG
　YUAN CHIN-TA
　KORAKRIT ARUNANONDCHAI

　MOHAMMAD AL FARAJ
　GAËLLE CHOISNE
　RANA BEGUM
　FATMA ABDULHADI
　HE ZIKE
　WANG HSIANG LIN
　MUSQUIQUI CHIHYING
　LIU AN-MING
　HSIAO YUNG-SHENG
　CHRISTOPHER KULENDRAN THOMAS
　LEE HUI-FANG
　YEESOOKYUNG

　MINJUNG KIM
　WANG YAO-YI
　JACKY CONNOLLY
　EDGAR CALEL
　SUNG TIEU
　JEREMY SHAW
　MONIA BEN HAMOUDA
　OU YANG WEN-YUAN
　MONA HATOUM
　JACOPO BENASSI
　SHIZUKA YOKOMIZO
　CHEN CHIH-CHI

　SKYLER CHEN
　YAU MENG-JIA
　CHENG SANG-SYI
　TENG NAN-GUANG
　ISAAC CHONG WAI
　CHEN CHENG-PO
　BUNNY ROGERS
　LONG CHINSAN
　JOEUN KIM AATCHIM
　LEE CHUN-SHAN
　YANG CHIH-HSIN
　FUYUHIKO TAKATA

　NI HAO
　HUANG TSE-HSIU
　EVA JOSPIN
　HO YEN YEN
　KIRIAKOS TOMPOLIDIS
　SIMON DYBBROE MØLLER
　WU CHIA YUN
　LIU KUO-SUNG
　P. STAFF
　HIRAKI SAWA
　ZHANG RUYI
　LINA LAPELYTĖ

LIST OF ARTWORKS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS