Taipei Biennial 2025 Whispers on the Horizon

The 14th edition of the Taipei Biennial 2025, titled 'Whispers on the Horizon', brings together 54 artists from 35 cities worldwide. Curated by Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath, the exhibition features 33 newly commissioned works and site-specific installations that engage deeply with the museum’s unique architecture and context. The Taipei Biennial 2025 amplifies the voices of young and mid-career artists, with nearly half of the participants born after 1984.

Excavating the Many Dimensions of Yearning 

Taiwan’s layered history—marked by colonial rule, shifting identities, and political transformation —forms the backdrop of the Taipei Biennial 2025. 'Whispers on the Horizon' explores the notion of yearning, expanding it beyond mere desire into something more persistent, unresolved, and deeply embedded in the human condition.

Yearning is a force that stretches across time and geography. It is the ache of lost homes and forgotten histories, the quiet pull of a future that never fully arrives. It is not simply nostalgia, nor is it hope—it exists in-between, in the suspended space where past, present, and future collide. 'Whispers on the Horizon'' traces this longing as it manifests in personal narratives and collective memory, resonating between reality and illusion, belonging and displacement, permanence and disappearance.

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Dialogue Between Past and Present: Weaving Historical and Contemporary Narratives

In 'Whispers on the Horizon', contemporary works will engage in a dialogue with early 20th-century paintings from Taipei Fine Arts Museum’s collection — including works by Chen Cheng-Po, Chen Chin, and Chen Chih-Chi. Moreover, the biennial will draw inspiration from artifacts from the National Palace Museum. This adds an extra historical dimension and cultural depth to the meaning of yearning, reminding us that yearning is not merely an emotional experience, but a reverberation across time, preserved in paint and porcelain, in delicate brushstrokes, and in objects that transcend borders and generations. They act as visual and conceptual bridges, reminding us that longing is not bound to the present; it echoes through centuries, across cultural shifts and political ruptures.

A Yearning That Never Settles 

Though this exhibition begins in Taiwan, its themes extend far beyond. 'Whispers on the Horizon' reminds us that yearning is universal, present in every culture and era. It is the ache of migration, the longing for home, the search for identity, the hunger for futures yet to unfold.  Yearning, in the Taipei Biennial, is neither static nor resolved. It moves, fragile yet persistent, invisible yet deeply felt.

'Whispers on the Horizon' does not close doors, it does not offer answers. Instead, it lingers. It lives in the space between memory and imagination, between what was and what could be.  It does not resolve. It whispers.