Whispers on the Horizon

The 14th edition of the Taipei Biennial, 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 2025 Taipei Biennial 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 2025 Taipei Biennial: 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. 

Three objects, three Stories: tracing the echoes of memory
The exhibition’s inspiration is rooted in three literary and cinematic objects rooted in Taiwan that carry histories of yearning: 

A puppet—from Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s film The Puppetmaster (1993), a semi-biographical reflection on the life of the Taiwanese puppet master Li Tien-lu, in times of Japanese colonial rule.

A diary—from Chen Yingzhen’s short story My Kid Brother Kangxiong (1960), chronicling the aspirations and struggles of a young man who committed suicide in a politically turbulent Taiwan.

 A bicycle—from Wu Ming-Yi’s novel The Stolen Bicycle (2015), where a son searches for traces of his father through a lost object, and who in the process gets entangled in Taiwan’s wartime history. 

These objects are not physically present in the exhibition. Instead, they act as silent markers of memory, embodying what has been lost, taken, or left behind. They remind us that yearning is as much about absence as it is about presence, about what we search for and what we already carry within us. 

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. 

Participating artists: Chen Cheng-Po, Chen Chih-Chi, Chen Chin, Fatma Abdulhadi, Afra Al Dhaheri, Mohammad Al Faraj, Korakrit Arunanondchai, Ivana Bašić, Rana Begum, Monia Ben Hamouda, Jacopo Benassi, Hera Büyüktaşçıyan, Edgar Calel, Skyler Chen, Musquiqui Chihying, Gäelle Choisne, Isaac Chong Wai, Zih-Yan Ciou, Jacky Connolly, Rohini Devasher, Simon Dybbroe Møller, Zike He, Yen-Yen Ho, Anna Jermolaewa, Eva Jospin, Minjung Kim, Joeun Kim Aatchim, Christopher Kulendran Thomas, Lina Lapelytė, Omar Mismar, Ni Hao, Camille Norment, Henrique Oliveira, Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum, Bunny Rogers, Hiraki Sawa, Sylvie Selig, Jeremy Shaw, P. Staff, Young-jun Tak, Fuyuhiko Takata, Sung Tieu, Kiriakos Tompolidis, Álvaro Urbano, Hsiang Lin Wang, Yao-Yi Wang, Nari Ward, Chia-Yun Wu,Yeesookyung, Shizuka Yokomizo, Yu Ji, Ruyi Zhang, Tobias Zielony