Venice Biennial has been an international art festival for over a century and is one of the most important contemporary art exhibitions today. This year, Taiwanese artist Vincent J.F. Huang, who has long devoted himself to contemporary eco art, was invited to be the only participating artist of the Tuvalu Pavilion in the Biennial, making him the first artist that ever represented Taiwan’s diplomatically in a major international art event.

“As climate change is becoming more extreme, how should art reflect and engage in this global crisis to make a difference?” This is the question that has been on Huang’s mind. Agreeing with German artist Joseph Beuys’s idea of “social sculpture,” Huang is dedicated to bringing the environmental issues into an art campaign that welcomes the public’s participation in order to raise more attention toward this global environmental issue.

In 2009, Huang, who had always been focusing on climate issues, started cooperative projects with Tuvalu in the same year, hoping his art could work as a wake-up call to the world to pay attention to Tuvalu’s imminent threat of the rising sea levels. In 2012, the Tuvalu government named Huang as its delegate to the UNFCCC COP 18, and the next year, its representative artist in the Venice Biennale. Later that year, he was selected by Farm Foundation New York as one of the artists in the Arctic Circle project. Also, Huang is awarded the 7th Presidential Culture Award in Taiwan in recognition of his outstanding international achievements.

Exhibiting at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Taipei, Destiny Intertwined—A Dialogue between Vincent J.F. Huang and Tuvalu is a sequel to Huang’s exhibition in the Tuvalu Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale. In addition to the original artworks shown in Venice, Huang further addresses the flooding problem faced by both Tuvalu and Venice. Infused with black humor and images, he parodies the ubiquitous capitalism, criticizes the economic structure that abuses natural resources in the name of development and civilization, and contemplates on the dear price humans have to pay for their economic pursuit.

Huang’s artistic practice spans from the islands of Tuvalu to the Arctic Circle, a project that witnesses the sublime massiveness of the arctic ice. Through his works and exhibitions, he poses a question to the world: “is the development of contemporary civilization pointing to a brighter future, or moving toward destruction?”

Organized by MOCA, Taipei and Tuvalu Embassy in Taipei, Taiwan, and curated by professor An-yi Pan of Cornell University, art critics Szu-hsien Lee and Shu-ping Shih, it is hoped that the exhibition will inspire multi-faceted and profound reflection on the world’s unsustainable economic system as energy conservation, carbon reduction, and green marketing have become a trend today.