Taipei: The 12th Taipei Biennial – You and I Don’t Live on the same Planet organized by the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM) and ended in March 2021 will be staged at the Centre Pompidou-Metz in France from November 6, 2021 to April 4, 2022.

The Taipei Biennial, as one of the few large-scale exhibitions that could still be staged and open to the public under the pandemic, welcomed a total number of 150,000 visitors but was unable to receive foreign audiences because of the travel ban. Meanwhile, the Centre Pompidou-Metz noticed the issues explored in and the discursive energy engendered by the exhibition and contacted the curators and TFAM to discuss the possibility of restaging the exhibition. With the active coordination and full support of Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture and the Centre Culturel de Taïwan à Paris, all parties involved have collaborated to facilitate the opportunity for European audiences to personally view the Biennial, which will be reconfigured according to the new venue.

For the recent 12th Taipei Biennial, French philosopher Bruno Latour and French independent curator Martin Guinard portrayed Taipei Fine Arts Museum as a “planetarium,” using the qualities of different planets as symbols of people’s varying perceptions of the current state of the earth, and posing questions regarding the ongoing tense state of geopolitical affairs and the increasingly severe ecological crisis. The exhibition connected artists with professionals from a variety of disciplines concerned with scientific or technological controversies, attempting to lead visitors to examine how different value systems interconnect and find balance, seeking achievable paths of negotiation to re-establish a relationship with the earth. The exhibition at the Centre Pompidou-Metz, with Taiwanese independent curator Eva Lin joining force with the curatorial team, continues the concept of the original exhibition, presenting five planets that respectively embody a different stance, and showcases twenty-two artists/art groups selected from the previous list of artists.

For two consecutive Taipei Biennials, in 2018 and 2020, Taipei Fine Arts Museum has engaged in in-depth discussions on urgent ecological issues of global concern: The former grappled with relationships of opposition and negotiation between humans and non-humans and strengthening the role of the museum as a key mechanism of the ecosystem; the latter further exerted the agency of art institutions through practical exercises in negotiation techniques and interdisciplinary knowledge production and participation.