CHANG
Ting Chen
 

Every time I look at the showcase filled with photos at my grandma’s home, I can't help but feel a sense of stiffness and silence. Being stared at by the person in the photo through the camera, I can't get more information other than existence through this indirect gaze. So, I began to be attracted by some phenomena out of the main focus which was built between the photographer and the subject, such as how images constructed from photos and objects in the showcase reveal and obscure each other, and how those who didn't notice the camera were also captured in the frame of photos and showcase. Therefore, I came to the conclusion that extracting elements such as optical unconsciousness and decisive moments will be a viewing possibility that could break through the specific relationship in the commemoration ceremony of such group images.

Archives could be seen as a kind of artificial memory. The image display that appears in the home space already includes the intention and presupposition of viewing. It opens up a public space for the private domestic realm. These images are physically inserted into our living spaces and become daily rituals that maintain subject relationships. This photographic project "Unrelated Home" attempts an unusual archiving logic and retrieves essences of time and space in the composition of photographic documents, as a way to reconnect the pure consciousness of a camera. By cropping and framing the figures of those unrelated people in the family photos who have no lens awareness, and then copying, enlarging, and rearranging them in the display space of the home; at the same time, the photos and objects originally placed in the showcase are also portraiting, copying, shrinking, and returning to the corresponding cut position in the family photo album, create a home scene through staged photography that deviates from the general viewing relationship.