INTERNATIONAL: We are social creatures, but it is a characteristic with many aspects. Talking Pictures asked twelve photographic artists from around the world to consider the nature of human connection. The images they selected are as nuanced as they are diverse.
Category Archive: Asia
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.
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: 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.
INDIA / UK: Challenging the prejudices ingrained in conventional constructions of beauty and the traditional role of women, Sujata Setia emphasises the potential for survival, redefinition, and regeneration.
IRAN: Deeply poetic imagery that speaks to complexity of grieving through the simple arrangement of objects, of alienation through the filtering of daily denial.
CHINA: A fusion of theatre and photography that, with an eccentric magic, weaves together the light and dark of the human condition.
INTERNATIONAL: Twelve reflections on the nature of Beauty by acclaimed contemporary photographers from around the world, their images and ideas as richly diverse and insightful as their individual creative practices.
CHINA: Without recourse to AI, Zhang Wei pieces together photographic fragments to create images that suggest the way in which ideological revisionism and Newspeak are deployed to encourage collective amnesia while making conformity seem inevitable.
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.
GEORGIA: Staged annually in the capital of Tbilisi, this festival of photography is known for its openness and inclusivity.
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REPUBLIC OF KOREA: Visually seductive allegories depicting a personal sensibility through the recombination of photographic fragments garnered from everyday life.
YEMEN: Caught in the tension between cultural roots and personal identity, these symbolically expressive tableaux map an intimate journey of becoming.
INTERNATIONAL: Eleven artists and one archivist each select a photograph that speaks to them about the significance of family in its many ways of being and being understood.
REPUBLIC OF KOREA: Colourful, painstakingly created installations that envision the artist’s innermost thoughts and feelings through metaphor and fable.
Teachers open the door.
You enter by yourself.Chinese proverb
IRAN / UK: Interlacing archival imagery to suggest the complex interplay of culture and context across time.
BANGLADESH: A photographer with a strong social conscience and a deep concern for the welfare of the marginalised members of her society.
CHINA: breaking with Chinese art traditions that eschew the nude, performative images that express the importance of trust, empathy, and personal authenticity.
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.
JAPAN: The photo-booth, the class portrait, the high-street studio, the job-applicant’s mugshot… hundreds of photographs and beneath them a single artist–model.
CHINA: Youthful Asian women and men engage in the conscious but unselfconscious presentation of self within a milieu of open intimacy.
INDIA: Exploring radically different ways to think about museums, books, and photography, Dayanita Singh emphasises curiosity over cognition.
REPUBLIC OF KOREA: Land art seeking a fresh perspective on Nature freed from notions of territory and property.
Nothing could be worse than a return to normality.
Arundhati Roy
INTERNATIONAL: Eleven artists reflect on what they learned during the pandemic, picking just one thing they would reimagine for the better in the future.
BANGLADESH: A humanitarian photographer who not only documents injustice and inequity in the world, but also explores his own imperfection with poignant honesty.
VIDEO: marking 150 interviews published on Talking Pictures.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song.
Chinese proverb
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