The 30 years from the 1970s through the 1990s are perhaps just a fleeting moment in terms of long-term historical development. But for Taiwan and its outlying islands, which are part of the global fabric, they were a critical time.

For people like me, born in the late 1960s, during these seemingly ephemeral days we collectively passed through historical events that transformed the world’s political situation and changed the future, including Taiwan’s withdrawal from the United Nations, the Ten Major Construction Projects, our break in diplomatic relations with the US, our economic rise as one of the Four Asian Tigers, the lifting of martial law, the Tiananmen Incident in China, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the reunification of Germany, the Persian Gulf wars, and the Asian financial crisis. Amid the tense social atmosphere under martial law and in the immediate post-martial-law period, Taiwanese photographers—in contrast to creative artists in fields such as literature and painting—responded to the reality of external difficulties and their own extended inquiries into life by involving themselves in society and getting close to the Hoklo, Hakka, Mainlander, and indigenous ethnic groups, as they tried to depict the joys, sorrows and vicissitudes of life in that era through photography‭.‬

With today’s flourishing of digital technology and the Internet, the practical barriers to entry have been lowered. The ubiquity of photographic equipment, the huge quantities of video and still images being generated, and the mixing of media and platforms, along with a proliferation of theoretical works, guidebooks, and reviews, have brought about a transformation in the content, forms, and grammar of photography, which has become more experimental and expansive in nature. By contrast, the photographic works produced in Taiwan from the 1970s through the 1990s generally betrayed an expressive style that resonated with the simpler and more traditional context of those times. However, a minority of photographers were led by their own subjective thoughts and hopes to pursue a systematic depiction of objective reality in Taiwan and its outlying islands.

Nevertheless, even situated as we are in an era of universal and omnipresent photography, it is not difficult to recognize and perceive the value and importance of those images of former days in a time of historic change. Naturally, the key to the content and power of these images is rooted not in differences of equipment and technique, but in the fertile soil created by the development and collisions of circumstances in different eras, and in the vigor and curiosity of Taiwanese photographers as they trod this rich land.

Exhibition information:

Looking Back: Taiwanese Photographers’ Island Gazes (1970s–1990s)

Venue: Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts, Yamanashi, Japan (www.kmopa.com)

Dates: July 7 – December 2, 2018

Curators: Chang Chao-tang, Shen Chao-liang

 

Cheng Tsun-shing recorded conditions in the little town of Luzhou in Taipei County (now New Taipei City), where salinization of farmland due to frequent tidal flooding led to outmigration of the population. Residents looked on with frustration as graveyards spread over the foothills of Mt. Guanyin, replacing the former crops.

Hsieh San-tai took this commemorative photo of a newly married couple in Fenggui, Penghu County. Besides speaking to the reverence and caution with which island people treat the vast sea, it is also a warm summons from his distant hometown to this traveler who has spent many years away.

Media worker Ho Ching-tai sought out the people huddled in the lower strata of Taiwanese society, studying their lives up close to create the portraits in the series “Shadowed Life.”

Juan I-jong was born into a carpenter’s family in Yilan County. In the 1970s, he began to visit places all over Taiwan to take photos of the lives of ordinary people. “The Lost Grace” is a representative series of works that rediscover the contentment and slower pace that once existed in traditional society in Taiwan.

The works of former photojournalist Lin Kuo-chan focus on the conditions of people beneath the surface of society and the city. The series “Hakka Encounters 1995” is a depiction of Hakka culture in Lin’s unique style, drawn from wedding celebrations in Hakka communities in Taoyuan and Hsinchu.

In 1992, 29-year-old Chang Yung-chieh visited Atayal communities in Miaoli County to record a precious cultural heritage in his photo series “Indigenous Atayal Elders with Facial Tattoos.” 

The transition from martial law in 1987 was a critical period for democratization in Taiwan. Liu Chen-hsiang, then only in his 20s, went through a baptism of fire in the frontlines of protests. For Liu, the streets are not only the classroom where he learned photography, they are an arena for honing one’s life skills.

From the 1980s, Pan Hsiao-hsia continually recorded various aspects of life on Orchid Island. Through daily routines of farming, fishing, navigation, sea crossings, and religious ceremonies, he attached himself to this pearl in the Pacific Ocean and created a photographic history of the Tao people. 

Kaohsiung-born Lin Bo-liang studied under the painter Shiy De-jinn, who brought him into contact with ordinary people in a wide variety of locations, enabling him to realize that the substance of art should be absorbed from life. This experience laid the foundation for his self-reflection about photography and his subsequent concern for the land and its people.

Through his “Homeland” series, Hsieh Chun-te not only deepened the connection between his creative work and the land, but more importantly highlighted a unique visual context and aesthetic form amid a widespread trend of focusing on classical realist photography.