2018 Kuandu Biennale

Opening Reception: October 5, 6pm

For the past decade, Kuandu Museum, affiliated with Taipei National University of the Arts, has been working on the topic of Asia for the past five editions. The 6th edition of Kuandu Biennial, hosted by Director Hongjohn Lin, is turning attention on the reflexivity in looking what an Asian biennial can do and cannot do. Therefore the genealogy of Asia needs to be questioned and interrogated. The Greek word Ἀσία (Asia) etymologically refers to “the land of sunrise,” where colonies were established and were majorly inhabited by other people. “Asia,” the eastern land, was first a coherent and distinct concept for the “other” in relation to Europe. Indeed, the entity of Asia cannot do without generalization and abstraction, because in reality Asia is contestant and heterogeneous and links to Europe and Africa geographically. Facing modernity and colonialism, most nation states in Asia have undergone twisted histories, tensioning traditions, coarse democracy and uneven urbanization. Wars, conflicts, crises, and diasporas are endemic symptoms of Asia from within and without.

In the past Pan-Asianism has always been an excuse for politico-militant interests. Okakura Tenshin’s military agenda of “The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere"; Sun Yat-Sen’s assertion of an Asian united front through Chinese nationalism; and Jawahalal Nehru’s promotion in fostering newly independent Asian countries were all good examples. Interestingly, the first Asian Art Exhibition was held in 1947 in the Asia Relations Conference in New Delhi. Until now, different plays of Asia have never exhausted in its contemporary variations, either in China’s “One Belt One Road” or Trump’s version of “the Indo-pacific.” 

We are living in times when there are more answers than questions. The Kuandu Biennial renders a critical picture of Asia in order to untangle twisted histories and to project possible futures. The plural form “Asias,” thus can be apprehended to get close to the real biosphere. These sets of questions asked by our invited curators, respective artists’ works, events and screenings altogether are to be recognized as discursive endeavors to disclose singularities from the easily ignored and the underrepresented in making Asias to be seen.   

Seven Questions are as follows:

Can We Really Talk about "Asiatic Mediterranean Area" in Terms of Global Geopolitics and Cosmology?
Curator: Ali Akay
Artists: Ali Kazma, Seza Paker

Do Accents, Dialects and Language Delimit Social Classes in Asia?
Curator: Bala Starr
Artist: Zou Zhao

Freedom, What Was That All About?
Curator: Henk Slager
Artists: Onejoon Che, Sara Sejin Chang (Sara van der Heide)’s project The German Library Pyongyang, with contributions by Choi Changho, Dongyoung Lee, Gabriele Stötzer/Künstlerinnengruppe Erfurt, Hans Haacke, Kim Kyungman, Park Chan-kyong, Rory Pilgrim, Sora Kim, and Yunjoo Kwak

The Question After the End of Questions: De-territorialization of Asia
Curator: Kai-Lin Yang
Artist: René Viénet 

Can Asia Produce Universality Through Diversity?
Curator: Pan Lu
Artists: AHA! (Archive for Human Activities), Irregular Rhythm Asylum, Ma Ran, Wai Lau

How Can We Shape Asia Through Reconnecting with Topos?
Curator: Sandy Hsiu-Chih Lo
Artists: Christoph Draeger & Heidrun Holzfeind, Fei-Hao Chen, Jiandyin (Pornpilai and Jiradej) 

The Impossibility of Mapping (Asia)
Curator: Ute Meta Bauer
Artists: Fiona Tan, Ho Tzu Nyen

Forum: Questioning Asia 
October 5, 10am–5pm

Education Workshop with TaipeiArts Doctoral Research Lab
Curatorial Thinking, Henk Slager

Film Screenings: "Asia?" 
Christoph Draeger & Heidrun Holzfeind, Ni Kun, René Viénet, Tiong Ang, and etc.

Events: Gorilla Classroom
Fei-Hao Chen, Jun-Honn Kao, and etc. 

Collateral programs: Astopia 
To Asia or Not Asia, That Is a Question…  with Centre A, Canada
Stateless to Nation State: Notes on Dystopia with Britto Space, Bangladesh

Contact
Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts
T +886-2896-1000 ext 2411
kdmofa@kdmofa.tnua.edu.tw
www.kdmofa.tnua.edu.tw