Encounters ; Figura (2018-2019)

This work was inspired by the book Hunting Captive Women by Chen Qian-Wu, a well-known Taiwanese writer. The book is a work of fiction based on his experiences as a Japanese Volunteer Army member during the Pacific War. Wu's mention of his arrival in Indonesia in his writing, it is strange yet beautiful. The painting-like landscapes, coconut trees along the coastline, shades of banyan trees as sun shelters, and beautiful women, as if the war never happened. The work borrows Wu's perspective to create a narrative that parallels my own journey. The way Wu described his feelings and experiences mirrored my feelings during my stay in Taiwan, where everything felt familiar yet distant. This prompted me to investigate the connections between photography, imperialism, and the colonial impulse to acquire, map, and collect. Photography has, almost since the beginning, been used to measure, classify, and police. Elaborate system of labeling were built to assist colonizers to know their subjects and control them. It becomes a well-known tool of colonialism. How visual language built images or shows powers. It is about objectification, description, representation, and classification carried to the ultimate point of the journey and power over life itself.  Wu's tool of documentation and communication is writing, whereas for me it is photography, and as an untrustworthy witness, I have gathered 'evidences' of my experiences and present my findings; a muddle of fact and fantasy.