Arts of Coming Down to Earth, 2020

Becoming terrestrial implies rethinking all means of production, including cultural networks. This project develops a series of actions, studies, and workshops that deal with the political significance of the atmospheric reality of exhibition-making. By methodically mapping the ecological causality of Taipei Biennial 2020, it seeks to understand the exhibition’s material existence in terms of CO2 emissions. An exercise in carbon mirroring, this investigation uses various greenhouse gas emission tracking tools and sets of data to document the Biennial’s contribution to the combustion of the world, from artwork production to artist travels and museum cooling.

The exercise unfolds in a collective understanding of cultural institutions’ necessary transformation towards multispecies conviviality and radical sustainability. In collaboration with Geotechnical Engineering Office of Taipei City Government and Taipei Forestry Technologist Association, TFAM has committed over the next years to reforest a large area of land in Taipei, focus on biodiverse reforestation and protection. Advancing a “poetics of restoration,” the program of action speculates on a terrestrial future in which museums would expand their maintenance practices beyond the object, to non-human collectives.