A news conference was held April 17 in Taipei City to send off Taiwan’s team to the 19th Venice Biennale of Architecture running from May 10 to Nov. 23 in the northeastern Italian city.
According to the Ministry of Culture, “NON-Belief: Taiwan Intelligens of Precarity,” curated by a team from National Cheng Kung University based in the southern city of Tainan, consists of 17 projects. It will be displayed at the Taiwan Pavilion at the Palazzo delle Prigioni organized by Taichung City-based National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts as a collateral event of the biennale.
Inspired by the biennale’s theme of “Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective” and focused on efficiency, technology and control, Taiwan’s exhibit endeavors to identify and construct a gray area within the binary dialectic of belief and non-belief that is unique to the country, the NTMFA said.
During her remarks at the press event, Deputy Cultural Minister Lee Ching-hwi said the Venice biennale is a key platform for Taiwan to engage with the rest of the world. Taiwan’s project is in response to the precarious global landscape, she said, adding that it also spotlights how the country, in the face of political and natural challenges, addresses and reflects on cultural, religious and social issues.
Lee said given Taiwan’s unique natural environment and geographic location, architecture plays a key role in how the society learns to coexist and engage with nature. She thanked all participating parties for bringing the project to fruition and making it an essential part of the Taiwan Cultural Year in Europe initiative jointly launched with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs earlier this year.
Echoing Lee’s remarks, Deputy Foreign Minister François Chih-chung Wu said Taiwan’s resilience to geopolitics and natural disasters is attracting growing attention from around the world. He applauded efforts by the organizers to bring the country’s architectural ingenuity to the global stage. (SFC-E)
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