Meet the Curators Behind the 2024 Asian Art Biennial at NTMoFA in Taiwan
Held at National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (NTMoFA) from November 16, 2024 until March 2, 2025, the Asian Art Biennial was presented by five curators — who all came from various regions across the world. The 2024 Asian Art Biennial, titled “How to Hold Your Breath,” explored the idea of deliberately pausing a vital function, creating a sense of anticipation. The phrase is a twist on the saying “don’t hold your breath,” which usually warns against expecting too much. Here, however, it suggested a hidden sense of hope.
Holding one’s breath is a way to stay grounded in the present. As the world faces ongoing crises, people continue to move and adapt, navigating uncertainty. This act of controlled breathing allows for a moment of stillness, preparing for transitions between different realities. It becomes a pause to listen more deeply, reconnect with the body’s natural rhythms, and align with the planet.
Rather than serving as a literal guide, “How to Hold Your Breath” encourages stepping away from visibility and oppressive systems, making room for new possibilities. It can be seen as a deep dive — an act of withdrawal before facing an unpredictable future.
“The title “How to Hold Your Breath,” is more of a suggestion or a question — an invitation to keep hoping that change could come, especially in dark times, in challenging times,” Merv Espina, one of the 2024 Asian Art Biennial curators, explained. As “How to Hold Your Breath” wraps up in Taiwan, EnVi reflects on the significance of the exhibition and the thoughts of the curators behind it.
About the Asian Art Biennial
As one of Asia’s most significant art biennials, the Asian Art Biennial is a major biennial exhibition organized by the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts in Taichung. Since its inception in 2007, the event has focused on showcasing the evolution of contemporary art, with a strong emphasis on Asia. In recent years, the biennial has engaged curators from diverse disciplines, fostering a collaborative curatorial approach through collective dialogue. By bringing together Asian artists from various cultural backgrounds and perspectives, the biennial has established a dynamic platform for artistic exchange and interaction.
“This year’s biennial marks a significant expansion, welcoming curators from West Asia (Turkey and Armenia) for the first time,” Chen Kuang-Yi, Director of NTMoFA said in an online interview with EnVi. Featuring artists from over 20 countries and regions, the exhibition presented 19 newly commissioned works, providing emerging artists with greater visibility and opportunities. Through curatorial innovation and diverse artistic perspectives, the biennial continues to push the boundaries of contemporary art in Asia.
In an online interview with EnVi, curator Merv Espina shared his thoughts on the diversity of the AAB curator team, which consists of members from different countries. “In a way, we [the curator team] are migrant workers. The works we curate and include challenge the representation and identity within the nation-state,” he explained.
Merv further noted that this concept of identity extends to Asia as a whole, where regions geographically considered part of Asia are closely connected to various “little Asias” around the world. “Expanding and challenging the notions of Asia and ‘Asianness’ contribute to a more complex understanding of museums. As a national museum, it is important to provide significant space for voices within Taiwan and to elevate the national narrative,” he continued. To achieve this, he emphasized the importance of looking back at history and studying it in depth, as understanding the past is essential to reshaping narratives and fostering more perspective on identity.
Curators of the 2024 Asian Art Biennial
Fang Yen-Hsiang (Taiwan)
A curator, researcher, and artist, Fang Yen-Hsiang explores the intersections of contemporary Asian art, institutional aesthetics, and new media. He has held key roles as Assistant Curator at Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts and Curator at Taipei Contemporary Art Center. His curatorial work often investigates themes of regional identity, transformation, and speculative futures. Notable projects include “Climate Fictionalism” (2015), “South as a Place of Gathering” (2019), and “Being XBeing X: Hsin-chien Huang’s Metaverse Theater” (2022). He also served as the Executive Curator for the Taiwan Pavilion at the 16th Biennale Jogja, further cementing his contributions to Taiwan’s contemporary art landscape.
“The 2024 Asian Art Biennial adopts a collective curatorial model as its working approach, exploring urgent issues in today’s world and contemporary Asia related to society, culture, ecology, and aesthetics, alongside the dynamics of coexistence within these contexts. We have gathered not only to curate but to foster dialogues that create a space for collective work, discussion, interaction, and negotiation. Through this decentralized process, we retain the unique perspectives and aesthetic viewpoints of each curator, maintaining a polyphonic presentation. The outcome of our work has culminated in the theme, “How to Hold Your Breath.” “How to Hold Your Breath” can be seen as a call to withdraw from spheres of visibility and systems that perpetuate violence, creating spaces of opacity from which new forms of agency can emerge. We imagine it as a deep dive before facing an uncertain and indeterminate future.”
— Fang Yen-Hsiang on the 2024 Asian Art Biennial.
Anne Davidian (Armenia/France)
Anne Davidian is a curator and editor whose work centers on communal structures and alternative social imaginaries. With a background in aesthetics from Sorbonne, she has been involved in artistic research and experimental spaces, co-directing “Chalet Society” in Paris (2012–2015) and co-founding “Kassandras” in Athens (2016–2017). From 2010 to 2023, she curated projects on arts, democracy, and critical education for a European philanthropic organization. Her editorial and curatorial work includes “Gharīb,” Armenia’s Pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale (2022), exploring sonic dissent, and co-commissioning an assembly space for Centre Pompidou. Since 2019, she has been the Artistic Director of the Evens Arts Prize, addressing contemporary issues like AI and algorithmic politics.
“The exhibition grew out of a sense of collective breathlessness. This has been a particularly troubling year. Tense geopolitical situation here in Taiwan, wars on civilians, ethnic cleansing, and genocide at Asia’s borders, the tightening grip of autocratic regimes worldwide — all signs of a new world order convulsing its way into existence. We felt suspended, as if we were losing our hold on agency. Together with artists, we needed a way to cope with that feeling of powerlessness. And we remembered: the retention of breath has long been a practice for shifting perception. An ancient way of reaching altered states, of envisioning new possibilities. At a time when we collectively struggle to breathe, “How to Hold Your Breath” sounds like a quiet self-help mantra. And in fact, it is a call to reclaim agency. A potent act — to withdraw from systems that perpetuate violence. A refusal to accept the imposed rhythms and historic cycles that try to convince us change is impossible.”
— Anne Dividian on the 2024 Asian Art Biennial.
Merv Espina (Philippines)
An artist, researcher, and curator, Merv Espina engages with sound, media arts, and alternative art spaces. He has exhibited and performed at major art events like the Jakarta Biennale (2015), Yokohama Triennial (2020), and Colomboscope (2024). Espina curates the WSK Festival of the Recently Possible, a leading sound and media arts platform, and co-initiated Nusasonic, fostering experimental music exchange between Europe and Southeast Asia. He co-founded “Kalampag Tracking Agency” (2014), an initiative dedicated to Philippine artists’ moving-image archives. His curatorial projects include “SUNSHOWER: Contemporary Art from Southeast Asia 1980s to Now” (Tokyo, 2017) and “Necessary Fictions: Negotiating Realities in Post-National Philippine Documentaries” (Taipei, 2022).
“Decompression is the title of the biennial forum which will take place this December 14. Comprised of presentations, panel discussions and a lecture-performance, the Decompression forum serves as a feedback-mechanism for our biennial, “How To Hold Your Breath.”
Diving into discourses of migration, activism, self-critique, solidarity and empire, sometimes swimming against established norms to question and propose new functions of arts and culture in ever turbulent times. Decompression is taken as a metaphor for surviving difficult times, imagining a time where we can all breathe more easily in a less asphyxiating world. Expanding the invitation to critics, curators and scholars, along with artists who are also featured in the exhibition and screening programs, Decompression unpacks the politics of breathing in a fractured world.
Using breath as both a vital sign of life and a medium of communication, the forum much like the biennial, weaves through personal reflections and collective narratives, taking varied angles into unpacking what non-oppressive communal and political forms can bring us together, at a time when even the political role of art and institutions have been increasingly appropriated by both state and corporations.”
— Merv Espina on the 2024 Asian Art Biennial.
Haeju Kim (South Korea/Singapore)
Currently a Senior Curator at the Singapore Art Museum, Haeju Kim examines the interplay of body, time, memory, and migration in contemporary art. Previously, she was Artistic Director of Busan Biennale 2022: We, on the Rising Wave and Deputy Director at Art Sonje Center (2017–2021), where she curated exhibitions such as Dust, Clay, Stone (2020) and “The Island of the Colorblind” (2019). She has worked with international institutions like Kunsthal Aarhus and SeMA, developing exhibitions and performance programs that explore global-local dynamics, materiality, and perception. Her curatorial approach embraces cross-cultural dialogue, fostering a deeper understanding of contemporary artistic practices.
“The curatorial team had a collective field trip to Taichung in March and it was a significant moment in shaping the exhibition’s outline. It helped us consider how the exhibition could establish a local connection with Taichung, and how each one’s experience and idea could be shared in ways that resonate with the local community and audiences. We are pleased that various new commissions and adaptations were made possible through diverse collaborations with local communities.
Hwayeon Nam’s work is based on her research on the Taiwanese choreographer Tsai Jui-Yueh, while Woosung Lee’s paintings reflect the cityscape of Taichung & Taipei. Nil Yalter’s hip-hop soundtrack for I AM was produced by Filipino migrant workers Ar~Em Sicat, Angelito, and The Third. Nefeli Papadimouli’s performance was produced in collaboration with Dawn Dance Theatre. A new chapter of Marwa Arsanios’ work was conceived in collaboration with Kuanntian Studio and Tsai Ming-Jiun. Lastly, Jasmin Werner’s project was produced in collaboration with Tanzi Catholic Church and Ugnayan Migrant Ministry, Taiwan’s oldest migrant worker shelter, not to mention these wonderful artists in Taiwan who participated in this exhibition.”
— Haeju Kim on the 2024 Asian Art Biennial.
Asli Seven (Turkey/France)
An independent curator, researcher, and writer, Asli Seven navigates the boundaries between fiction and reality, focusing on infrastructure, landscape, and alternative pedagogies. Her work is rooted in fieldwork and co-creation, emphasizing new forms of storytelling and artistic engagement. She has curated exhibitions such as “Under Two Suns” at Odunpazarı Modern Museum (2023–2024) and “ELEKTROIZOLASYON: Unknown Parameter Extro-Record” at Arter Museum (2021–2022). In addition to her curatorial practice, she is a guest lecturer at MoCo ESBA Montpellier and Sotheby’s Institute of Art, specializing in fictionality and emergent narrative structures in contemporary art. She holds a doctoral degree in Artistic Research from ENSA Bourges and a Research MA in Political Science from Université Paris 1 – Sorbonne.
“The screening program is titled “How Breath Moves.” It attempts to imagine breath as a collective cinematic device, a shared source of life and rhythm, moving across our bodies to technologies of light and projection. (referencing the collective experience of being together in a dark room watching images projected through light – and in the early mechanics of cinema when the image depended on mechanical movement when you had a flickering image)
With a selection of 8 films in a range of artistic strategies –documentary essay, performance video, and animation – The program expands on the Biennial’s core themes and provides critical historical contexts into strategies of survival and creativity against the enduring legacies of colonialism, forced migration, and the exploitation of biological and cultural labor.
It celebrates the migration and translation of cultural forms through food and music, reveals the uplifting powers of anger and love amid grief and loss, and highlights the intricate connections between human and non-human species, living and non- living beings.”
— Asli Seven on the 2024 Asian Art Biennial.
About NTMoFA
For nearly two decades, the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (NTMoFA) has been a key force in shaping contemporary art in Taiwan and across Asia. As the sole institution in Taiwan consistently organizing the Asian Art Biennial, now in its ninth edition, NTMoFA has strengthened its role as a platform for artistic and cultural exchange. By fostering cross-cultural dialogue and academic collaboration, the museum enhances Taiwan’s presence in the global contemporary art scene.
Responding to the art landscape, NTMoFA as a leading institution in Taiwan’s art scene is dedicated to documenting Taiwanese art history and advancing contemporary artistic creation. It serves as both a platform and a catalyst, fostering global integration and providing Taiwanese artists with opportunities for international exchange and recognition. With growing global interest in Asian art, Taiwan’s strategic position as a hub of democracy and cultural openness enhances its influence. NTMoFA leverages this to elevate Taiwanese art internationally, ensuring its presence on the global stage.
“Additionally, NTMoFA will continue to address critical contemporary issues through profound artistic perspectives, tackling topics such as the Anthropocene, geopolitics, neoliberalism, new materialism, technium, and the role of AI in future societies. As a national art institution, NTMoFA is dedicated to exploring and presenting thought-provoking viewpoints, ensuring that Taiwan maintains a strong and resonant voice on the global art stage, “ Chen concluded.
The Asian Art Biennial 2024 at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts exhibited from November 16, 2024 to March 2, 2025. For more information regarding the Asian Art Biennial exhibition, visit NTMoFA’s website here.
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