In Currents

Curated by Fang-Yu Liu 劉芳妤, Man-Ling Cheng 鄭曼翎, & Wei-Che Huang 黃威哲

“What does it mean to be Taiwanese?”

Thomas VanDyke Gallery is pleased to present In Currents, a group show featuring works by 10 Taiwanese artists based across the US and Taiwan. 

The exhibition poses the ever-so-topical question of “What does it mean to be Taiwanese?" As Taiwan’s repute has been largely pigeonholeed by its uncertain political status, the exhibition carries on with the uncertainty and offers a new path for the reimagination of being Taiwanese. With Taiwan as the core, the exhibition, however, provides capacity for audiences of all backgrounds to reflect on their own identities, both the making and the evolution of them.

The exhibition is part of Taiwan on the Moon, a transnational curatorial project conceived during the Expo 2025 in Osaka, Japan. In response to the absence of a national pavilion representing Taiwan by name, the project centered around the construction of a grassroots Taiwanese Pavilion, first exhibited at the Setouchi Triennale in April. The centerpiece, which prints the image of Taiwan onto an inflatable moon sculpture, proposes a new way to envision Taiwan. Situated at the far side of the moon, free of political turmoil, what could Taiwan be? With issues such as migration and identity in mind, the New York division of Taiwan on the Moon inherited the visual language of the Project and staged a series of pop-up performances across New York, thematizing the motif of migration through interpreting the process of migration from leaving the place of origin to settling in a new environment.

In Currents serves as the latest chapter of Taiwan on the Moon that brings 11 Taiwanese artists and their works inspired by the collective or their own experiences of cultural exchange.

Across a diverse array of media, ranging from video and installation to photography, textiles, performance, objects, and art books, each piece offers a refined perspective on Taiwanese culture and identity, drawing on personal memories, historical narratives, and migration experiences to capture the complexity and captivation of this island.

Migration and boundaries emerge as recurring themes throughout the exhibition. For many, the question of whether a land can truly offer safety and belonging has long shaped everyday life. This condition has cultivated a deeply internalized sense of movement—a quiet readiness to leave, to adapt, to drift. Seen from afar, Taiwan’s vibrant cultural inclusivity becomes even more poignant. And while the uncertainty and contradiction that often accompany identity formation may feel isolating, they are also deeply universal. We hope that audiences from diverse backgrounds will find emotional resonance in the daily experiences presented here—and perhaps recognize echoes of their own.

What is Taiwan? And more specifically, how do we address Taiwan? In their own ways, each artist narrates their inquiry about the shaping of their identities, both personal and national, political and idiosyncratic.