The 2021 Asian Art Biennal, themed around "Phantasmapolis," explores Asian science fiction and futurism, as well as many aspects of regional science fiction culture through historical slices. To deeply explore the context of science fiction in Asian modern and contemporary art, the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts held the two-day "Songs from the Moon Rabbit－2021 Asian Art Biennial Forum" on October 30 and 31 as a special opening for the biennial.
The forum was organized by Thanavi Chotpradit, a member of the biennial's curation team, inviting scholars from Taiwan and abroad, and participating artists for talks and dialogues. Together, they discussed topics such as views of the future, queer science fiction, time travel from the perspectives of academic research and artistic creation.
The forum was hosted under six different themes: "Strolling Through the Cities of the Un-Arrival," "The Cabinet of Queer Sci-Fi," "The Spectral Terrain," "The Society in the Cloud," "The Eclipse Shadow," "Standing at the Threshold." Panelists included Professor Jeffrey Hou (侯志仁) of the College of Built Environments, University of Washington and Sarover Zaidi of India's Jindal School of Art & Architecture; Pathompong Manakitsomboon, lecturer at the Department of Media Arts and Design at Chiang Mai University, Thailand; Nicole Wang (汪怡君), research of archived projects for the biennial; and several participating artists from Taiwan and abroad.
Through the artists' explanations of their creative concepts and interdisciplinary perspectives spanning anthropology, sociology, and architecture, the panelists addressed diverse cultural issues, creating a space for dialogue and exchange, tapping into the "unknown" within the extant world, and extending the possibilities of Asian art in the future.