VIDEO: marking 150 interviews published on Talking Pictures.
Category Archive: Asia
BANGLADESH: A humanitarian photographer who not only documents injustice and inequity in the world, but also explores his own imperfection with poignant honesty.
KOREA: Park Jongwoo – the first person to photograph the interior of the so-called ‘Demilitarised Zone’ that divides Korea – speaks about what he found in this, the world’s most contested strip of land.
RUSSIA / SPAIN: Alisa Sibirskaya creates photographic tableaux echoing themes from the Dutch Baroque and Siberian folktales that capture the luminous glow of a bygone age.
SAUDI ARABIA: Fascinated by harmony and dissonance, and the cycles of return, Saleh AlDaghari’s picture-making sits on the cusp between surrealism and allegory.
THAILAND: Scathing satirical tableaux critiquing the country’s turbulent socio-political scene, created by one of Southeast Asia’s leading artists.
TAIWAN / USA: Haunting images inspired by the migrant’s ongoing negotiation of memory, perception, and identity.
The one who plants trees, knowing that they will never sit in their shade, has at least started to understand the meaning of life.
Rabindranath Tagore
CHINA / USA: Delicately ambiguous self-portraits exploring the tension between freedom and boundaries, self-reflection and self-discovery.
REPUBLIC OF KOREA: Satirical imagery that critiques the impact of colonialism in Korea and its enduring legacy of historical trauma.
ISRAEL: An exploration of the equivocal transition from child to adult in portraits of adolescents in Ukraine, Russia and Spain.
LEBANON / AUSTRALIA: Dreamlike psychodramas that envision the émigré’s feelings of separation, longing and isolation.
CHINA: Documentary images highlighting communities that, while they may seem outside of the mainstream in China, are in fact simply some of its constituents.
If your plan is for one year, plant rice. If your plan is for ten years, plant trees. If your plan is for a hundred years, educate children.
Confucius
INTERNATIONAL: Nine photographic artists from across five continents reflect on what motivates them to create photographs.
REPUBLIC OF KOREA: For the Korean artist Atta Kim, the process of making art has been an ongoing philosophical journey of discovery.
REPUBLIC OF KOREA: Creating a fluid and ambiguous aesthetic space between painting, sculpture and photography, Hyunmi Yoo challenges our understanding of the relationship between visual representation, ‘truth’ and ‘reality’.
REPUBLIC OF KOREA: Exploring the liminal space at the threshold of realty and simulation, original and replica, fact and fake.
MALAYSIA / SINGAPORE: Apparently whimsical images that critique community erasure in Malaysia and the re-wilding of a hyperreal city-state in lockdown.
CHINA: A fusion of theatre and photography that, with an eccentric magic, weaves together the light and dark of the human condition.
IRAN / AUSTRALIA: Poetically perceptive imagery that engages the layers of displacement, difference and marginality that define what it means to be ‘other’.
REPUBLIC OF KOREA: Constructing from the catalogue of British oil painting ironic self-portraits that situate the alienated Asian man in the midst of Britain’s aristocratic past.
REPUBLIC OF KOREA: Bohnchang Koo finds in the simplest of objects and surfaces a nuanced expression of traditional Korean values of humility, practicality and acceptance of the imperfect nature of being.
Industry without art is brutality.
Ananda Coomaraswamy
INTERNATIONAL: Impressions of Christmas and the New Year through the kaleidoscopic lens of artists from Asia, the Americas, Europe and Oceania.
LATIN AMERICA: Three Latino artists of Japanese heritage spend a month photographing in the Land of the Rising Sun. What will their images tell us about their identity?
LATINOAMÉRICA: Tres artistas latinoamericanos de origen japonés pasan un mes fotografiando la Tierra del Sol Naciente. ¿Qué nos dirán sus imágenes acerca de su identidad?
CHINA: Reflections on the meanings and value of family photo archives in traditional homes in Shanxi Province.
BANGLADESH: Asia’s longest-running photo festival, founded on a powerful vision of social justice and driven by a tenacious dynamism, it forms one arm of a tripartite structure including a news picture agency and a media school.
VIETNAM: Focusing on people at the margins of society, these relaxed domestic moments explore, without sensationalism, the intimate companionship that is a foundation of our shared human experience.
CAMBODIA: With a focus on discovery, education and sharing, this festival and workshop program provides a generous and egalitarian environment in which to learn new skills, exchange ideas and establish new friendships.
INDIA: Described as “the most entertaining artist-iconoclast of contemporary Indian art”, Pushpamala N’s pioneering and influential feminist–conceptual photographic performance works seek to subvert the dominant cultural and intellectual discourse in India.
THAILAND: With a focus on Asian documentary practice, this festival maintained its independence by building not only the event but also a new photography centre through the work and solidarity of photographers themselves.
BANGLADESH: A photographer with a strong social conscience and a deep concern for the welfare of the marginalised members of her society.
A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song.
Chinese proverb
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