in Taiwan. CHEN Chieh-jen (1960–) is interested
in violent events that occurred in modern Chi-
nese history, depicting his interpretations of the
Japanese invasion of China in the 1930s. Using
digital techniques to mimic historical photo-
graphs that depict horrific acts, including decap-
itations, Chen Chieh-jen is concerned with the
issues of body, national identity, and political
power. His works, in their depiction of the life
cycle and the afterlife, are also inspired by
notions of Chinese Taoism.
HUNG Tung-lu (1968–) is interested in cyber
culture and figures that represent this culture in
Taiwan and Japan, creating figures based entirely
on his imagination through digital techniques
which deal with what human beings might become
in the advancing cyber culture. He has explored
answers to this question in Buddhist tenets and
incorporates the idea of nirvana into his cyber
creations, which are holographic in nature and
mounted in light boxes. WU Tien-chang (1956–)
uses digital photography to mimic posters that
might be found in Shanghai, incorporating aspects
of ancient Chinese myth, folklore, and Taoism into
the narrative of his works.
CHEN Shun-chu (1963–) is concerned with the
concept of family. He has taken portraits of his
family members and others since 1992 and has
accumulated hundreds of photos. In his works, he
addresses social relations and their connection to
the concept of family, and expanding this concept,
to the idea of home.
YAO Jui-chung (1969–) a pioneer of Taiwanese
contemporary photography, remains a leading
photographer. He is also very active in the curator-
ial field and is known for his critical writing on the
contemporary art and photography of Taiwan. In
an early photographic series, he made upside-down
self-portraits as a parody of Taiwan’s national
identity in relation to China. He is also interested
in landscape that is ruined or abandoned in Tai-
wan, and the issues of cultural identity generated
by these landscapes.
SHIN-YIYangCHINA AND TAIWAN, PHOTOGRAPHY IN
Zhang Huan, To Raise the Water level in a Fishpond, 1997, Performance, Beijing, China. Original in color.
[Courtesy of the artist and Aura Gallery]