TAIPEI.- The 14th edition of the Taipei Biennial, Whispers on the Horizon, opened on November 1 at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM). Curated by Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath (Directors of Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, Berlin), the exhibition brings together about 150 works of 72 artists from 37 cities. The presentation includes 34 new commissions and site-specific installations, spanning painting, sculpture, film, photography, and performance.

Whispers on the Horizon explores yearning as an enduring human drive that reaches past the possible, knowing it will never hold, and still refuses to yield. It is both personal and collective, fragile and defiant; the thread that connects longing to imagination and change. The exhibition expresses a desire to speak about the future in a tone of quiet insistence rather than overt proclamation. “Whispers” evokes the fragility of communication—voices that endure even in silence, stories that persist despite erasure. The “Horizon” marks the meeting line between what is known and what is hoped for. Together, they suggest that the faintest murmur can redraw distance, and the smallest gesture can reshape how we imagine the world.

The conceptual foundation of this edition draws from three modest yet charged objects—though absent from the physical exhibition, they serve as metaphors guiding the show’s emotional and temporal arc. The puppet of Li Tien-Lu, featured in Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s film The Puppetmaster (1993), represents a life dedicated to craft, embodying persistence across periods of occupation and renewal; The diary from Chen Yingzhen’s short story My Kid Brother Kangxiong (1960) conveys the voice of a young man who took his own life, torn between faith and despair, reflecting a generation caught between conviction and disillusion; The bicycle from Wu Ming-Yi’s novel The Stolen Bicycle (2015) symbolizes a son’s search for his missing father, evoking themes of loss, inheritance, and belonging. Together, these literary and cinematic references form an invisible architecture for the biennial, with the puppet representing continuity, the diary interiority, and the bicycle pursuit—three distinct expressions of yearning that resonate throughout the exhibition.

The Biennial interweaves contemporary works with ones from the Taipei Fine Arts Museum’s collection. Around 30 TFAM collection pieces are placed throughout the exhibition in dialogue with both new commissions and existing works. A broad selection of photographs from the 1930s–80s forms a subtle thread running through the Biennial, echoing its three conceptual departure points: the puppet, the diary, and the bicycle. Additional pieces appear in formal or thematic resonance with individual artworks across the exhibition. They act not merely as historical artifacts but as living agents of yearning that bridge continuity and transformation. This curatorial approach fosters an intergenerational dialogue between those who shaped Taiwan’s cultural landscape and those addressing today’s urgency.

The exhibition architecture, specially conceived for this edition, features textile partitions in place of solid walls. These suspended elements function as permeable thresholds, arranged to allow sightlines between galleries and create a rhythm of visibility and connection. This spatial strategy echoes the thematic undercurrents of the Biennial, inviting a fluid and contemplative visitor experience. In addition, concise wall texts function as a self-guided tour, offering visitors clear context for each work on display and opening accessible pathways into the ideas shaping the Biennial.

Sam Bardaouil & Till Fellrath, Curators, remarks: "We want to create a Biennial that could only exist here—one that listens to the histories, languages, and contradictions that make Taipei what it is. Our dialogue with TFAM's collection was not an act of nostalgia but of grounding: an insistence that the local, when deeply engaged, becomes a lens for the world. In Whispers on the Horizon, yearning is that bridge—it begins in the intimacy of memory and extends into a shared horizon where the local turns universal."

Exhibition highlights

The ground floor presents works exploring profound connections between devotion, memory, and endurance. Together, these works illustrate how devotion—to craft, memory, and care—serves as a means of survival.

• Ciou Zih-Yan's (b. 1985, Sanyi, Miaoli) Fake Airfield (2025) reconstructs a decoy airstrip from the Japanese colonial era, featuring a hand-built cardboard aircraft with a film projection inside the cockpit. The installation examines how collective memory is shaped blending historical fact with fiction.

• Chen Chin's (b. 1907–98, Hsinchu) painting Out in the Fields (1934) offers a serene yet powerful depiction of a woman in the fields. CHEN painted elegant women whose style and presence came to symbolize a Taiwan in search of its identity.

• Nari Ward's (b.1963, St. Andrew) SOUND SYSTEM (2025) transforms marble into a symbolic stack of speakers, celebrating Jamaican sound culture as a form of social sculpture and exploring how rhythm fosters the architecture of belonging.

• Afra Al Dhaheri's (b. 1988, Abu Dhabi) Weighted PAUSE (2025) uses thick, looped ropes in a meditative arrangement, inviting viewers to contemplate slowness as a form of resistance in a fast-paced world.

The Biennial’s basement level focuses on the body as both witness and site of transformation. The floor becomes a subterranean mirror: a descent into the self where yearning takes form through breath, repetition, and ritual.

• Ivana Bašić's (b. 1986, Belgrade) Passion of Pneumatics (2020–24) and Metanoia (2025) transform the act of breathing into sculpture, using rhythmically crushed stone and glass vessels that evoke the motion of lungs to embody the desire of transcendence.

• Christopher Kulendran Thomas (b. 1979, London) presents AI-generated paintings that reinterpret Sri Lanka’s colonial history, blending political narrative with digital abstraction to question historical truth in the age of automated memory.

• Syu Ching-Pwo's (b. 1930–2021, Banqiao) photograph Confidence (1956) captures two men leaning close in conversation, with a bicycle beside them like a quiet hinge—separating and connecting at once, reflecting the exhibition’s recurring motif of pursuit and loss.

• Jacky Connolly's (b. 1990, Lower Hudson Valley, New York) The Mineral Kingdom (Dark Green) (2025) transforms personal grief into digital landscapes, using dreamlike imagery to merge memory with virtual terrain.

On the upper level, the Biennial shifts its focus to themes of modernity, representation, and shared belonging. These works trace a modern artistic lineage shaped by the desire to perceive, interpret, and connect—a collective reimagining of the world through the lens of yearning.

• Liu Kuo-Sung's (b. 1932, Bengbu, Anhui) Floating Mountain (1971) breaks from traditional ink painting to develop new abstract forms, connecting classical cosmology with modern perspectives.

• Eva Jospin’s (b. 1975, Paris) Ici (2025) constructs a mirrored forest inspired by the divided classical painting Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains, transforming themes of separation into a visual poetry of reflection.

• P. Staff's (b. 1987, Bognor Regis) Skeleton (2025) turns the gallery into an exploration of control and resistance, layering infrared imagery and poetic narration to examine how bodies are regulated and liberated.

• Mona Hatoum’s (b. 1952, Beirut) Cellules (2012–13) encases fragile red glass orbs within steel cages, creating a powerful metaphor for the duality of protection and confinement in relation to belonging.