Taishin Bank Foundation for Arts and Culture

Comments on the Finalist

CHEN Chin-Pao has spent ten years taking photos with a large-sized camera in Taiwan, China, Japan, South Korea and other regions in Northeast Asia. His photos show the memories and cultural heritage in families, schools and communities, serving as the files and documents of life and politics. The tension in Chen’s words and images show his own experience and dialogue as well as the truth and fiction behind the photos, thus emphasizing the paradox within words and actions as well as developing the local imagery vocabulary that comes after concept photography. By embedding the family and social morals across different generations into viewing mechanism of the framed works, Chen gently depicts the cultural and social identity that exists between areas and subjects within a context that is based on appearing/disappearing and winding/returning.   Committee member:LIN Hong-Chang

When most of the class was diligently preparing for the test, a boy was dozing off at his desk and consequently failed the exam; a 6-grader girl said that the most enjoyable memory in elementary school was playing tag. These fragments of a life of an elementary school student are reinterpreted by CHEN Chin-Pao, who not only recalled these common memories in us, but also discussed the boundaries of reality and memory through the project.

Artwork Introduction

Circumgyration is a photographic project that explores the boundaries and possibilities of reality, truth, and memory. The project was conceived by photographer CHEN Chin-Pao after a year of research and development, and founded on various notions of contemporaneity in photography. Chen invited students from his classes at Dengkong Elementary School to pose for scenes that he had observed in real life. From the very beginning of the project, he decided to abandon documentary style and use a large-format film camera while combining artificial strobe lighting and ambient light. Beginning in 2001 and continuing for seven years, it would later become the first stage of Circumgyration.

In 2008, Chen was invited to participate in a contemporary art exhibition, Fusion Folks, for which he took photographs at Lausong Elementary School in Taipei. It was then that Circumgyration entered its second stage. A questionnaire was handed out to students and their parents to be filled out along with an assignment to draw a picture of the most powerful memory from when they were 11 or 12 years old. Chen took pictures according to the drawing and the answers to the questionnaire. Students re-enacted themselves and their parents, and in the exhibition, the questionnaires were juxtaposed with the large black-and-white photographs.

A Revival of Elementary School Memories

"In Taiwan, most people still see photography as a way to record reality. In contemporary art, as a matter of fact, photography has been considered a medium of creation as painting or installation," said Chen. Thus, Circumgyration: A Quartet aims to leap to the level of contemporary art by taking large cameras commonly used by European and American artists. He discarded the snapshot and documentary style favored by Taiwanese photographers, and tried to take inspirations from his or others' memories. Through certain performance and staging, memories that were never captured on film can now become visible images.

Chen is a teacher at Denggong Elementary School at New Taipei City. Naturally his students are his Muses. The idea first struck when he saw some senior students cleaning the toilet with a hose. He then asked a chubby boy to play with the hose and captured the joyful scene. Wednesday afternoon has then become his photo time with students for 7 years since 2001. This is phase one of the Circumgyration project.

In 2009, the project began its 2nd phase. Firstly, Chen gave out questionnaires to senior students and their parents and asked them to write down or draw out a most unforgettable memory of theirs in the 5th and the 6th grades. Students then acted out that memory on behalf of themselves and their parents. The questionnaires were also placed next to the blown-up photos as part of the exhibition.

Recognition by Japan's Higashikawa Award

This collection not only reinterprets childhood memories, but also embodies common memories of a certain generation. It evokes a reminiscent feeling: failed at math, stood at the hallway as punishment for being late, felt honored for being part of the choir, etc. "Kids are natural actors. It's great fun working with them. With the lights on, they all act fairly professionally," said Chen. “The only thing to watch out,” he added, “was to keep takes to minimum otherwise kids would lose patience.”

The project also drew attention abroad. Chen was invited to Yokohama, Japan in 2009, Gyeonggi-do, Korea in 2010 and Shanghai, China in 2011 to work with elementary schools there. This Northeastern Asian tour completes another phase of the project. This project then won the Higashikawa Award, the largest photography award in Japan, and Chen also became the first Taiwanese photographer to win the award.

After going around Taiwan, Japan, Korea and China, Chen found that, despite their social and cultural differences, childhood memories in these countries were surprisingly similar. Many mentioned speech contests, and statues of great men.

The project ends here, for now. Yet perhaps a tour to a different region of the world will start it again, summoning the childhood memories of the world.

About the Artist

CHEN Chin-Pao earned his BFA in Photography from the School of Visual Arts in New York. His recent solo exhibitions include “Impressions: Explorations in the Photography of Chen Chin-Pao”at PINGPONG Artspace in Taipei and “Circumgyration” at Tokyo Polytechnic University in Tokyo. He is the recipient of the 2011 Asian Cultural Council Fellowship and the 2010 Higashikawa Award in Hokkaido, Japan.

Production Team

Curator: Edward Chiu

Artists: CHEN Chin-Pao