Home and Away at SCAF: Chien-chi Chang and Chen Chieh-jen

Chen Chieh-jen. Realm of Reverberations, 2014; installation view from the exhibition HOME; multimedia installation; dimensions variable. Commissioned by Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, Sydney. Photo: Brett Boardman.

I saw the extraordinary photographs of Magnum photographer Chang Chien-Chi in an exhibition at the Singapore Museum in 2008. I had never heard of him and stumbled on the exhibition by the purest of serendipitous accident. I was blown away by his compelling and tragic photographs of chained mentally ill people at a so-called Buddhist "sanctuary" and temple complex in Taiwan, and just as much by his documentation of Chinese immigrant workers in New York and their families left behind in Fujian Province. And then a third series, documenting Vietnamese mail order brides in search of citizenship papers, and their sad weddings to Taiwanese bachelors was as powerful an artistic and social document again. An extraordinary body of work.

Chien-chi Chang. The Chain, 1993-99; installation view from the exhibition HOME; 45 works; silver gelatin photographs; each 157.8 x 107.3 cm. Photo: Brett Boardman.

And now Gene Sherman has brought his series "The Chain" to Sydney where it can be seen at the National Art School. The other half of the exhibition, by an artist that she mistakenly assumed to be the same person, is showing at the Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation in Paddington. A  must-see. Here is the start of my review of the exhibition from Daily Serving:

The word “home” has elusive, slippery connotations. In Chinese, the character “jia” (家) also means “family.” It suggests notions of sanctuary, shelter, belonging. But for some the meanings are more complicated. For the marginalized, the outsiders, the lost ones in our midst, it reminds them of all that is missing. For others, in a world crisscrossed by a diaspora of dislocated people seeking safety and security, “home” is a fragile memory.

HOME is an exhibition of works by two Taiwanese artists, Chien-chi Chang and Chen Chieh-jen, that explores this complex and nuanced territory. Entering Sydney’s Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, you encounter a darkened and almost silent space filled with minimalist wheeled “wagons,” cabin-like boxes made of recycled timbers from construction sites. The very materials are redolent of memory, the passage of time, the transformation of one kind of world to another. They are beautiful objects, and in their resemblance to caravans, they evoke journeying. Inside each is a video or audio work by Chen Chieh-jen. Four filmic works focus on the Losheng Sanitorium in Taipei, a decommissioned leprosy hospital built during the period of Japanese rule and controversially slated for demolition. In 2007, thousands of people demonstrated against the forced removal of the last forty-five patients, who had spent their entire lives at Losheng and for whom it was “home.” Chen is interested in bodily memories and elusive states of mind. He documents histories—and people—that would otherwise go unremarked.
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