Canvas Magazine

Rooted in historical and local cultural context, the 14th Taipei Biennial – curated by Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath – uses three objects as its departure points, while including further works from the expansive collection of the Taipei Fine Arts Museum. The three guiding vessels comprise a puppet from Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s film The Puppetmaster (1993), a diary featured in Chen Yingzhen’s 1960 short story My Kid Brother Kangxiong, and a stolen bike from Wu Ming-Yi’s novel The Stolen Bicycle (2017), each representing a different kind of longing, loss, memory or desire, from private to social and across generations. 

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However, when does chasing the impossible become futile and the desire for people, places and things to be immortal simply a decadent pursuit? Afra Al Dhaheri’s monumental Weighted PAUSE (2025) highlights the importance of both slowing down to feel the weight of the present, and of reflecting. The sense of longing does not become an impossible feat in the distance, but a necessity to rest in the now. Perhaps it is a testament to our contemporary times, where the world is on edge yet there is an urgency to keep going. Throughout the biennial, the audience is invited to stop and share uncertainty rather than seek closure, as uncomfortable as that limbo may make us, but we can at least acknowledge a collective feeling that brings us together, even if that horizon never comes.