Chien- Chi Chang/ MAgnum Photos
Chien Chi Chang is a Magnum Photographer.
But that isn’t everything about him:
Chien chi Changs is a Taiwanese American photographer.
Just this definition would entail and embrace one of the most visible characteristics of his work in validation of his own divided immigrant experience:
Chien Chi Chang is personal.
He has been building a big puzzle, where every piece in the shape of assignments, essays and books brings elucidating and enlightening concepts on the most intriguing issue of all: Relations. When it comes to relation he throws into his visual fragments the human role and its interaction with the whole. The notions of both: disconnection and connection, the alienation and belonging, roots and dispersion, the human dependencies and the ties and bonds, either personally or culturally, and socially set, and how this interconnected global community walks among that; faces and evolves from that.
Chien Chi Chang is a visual poet.
Subtle, precise and something beautiful to “question” which can converge in portraits of this hectic, globalized net of flow reproduced in times, spaces, lacunas in between destination and destiny, the patients of mental asylum connected to monks, the business selling brides in Vietnam, the complexities on the lives of Chinese immigrants in New York, he makes you look, and you end up seeing and feeling. He stands for personality for digging that fear, inner issue and empower it with a vision, the camera, and find an emotional subjective way to be the witness, infatuating more questions marks than exclamation from atrocities, globally pertinent events to every day truths, and consequently the challenge of looking in the mirror.
Chien Chi Chang is free.
Instead of defining a style and being conditioned or confined to and by that box, he constantly, spontaneously and consciously opts for an open mind, an open road, offering himself successive challenges at each essay reinventing and adapting himself as conductor between the viewfinder and his photography as the language he seeks to communicate efficiently through, as a tie to bind the world. The casting of his creative process is set: The photographer in the second role supporting the protagonist: Storytelling. His commitment with the emotional subjective narrative and storytelling fulfill his frame.
Chien–Chi Chang is a Magnum Photographer; but more than that…
he is a photographer who has found his way and quest. How about you?
Magnum Caravan and a glass of wine with Chien- Chi Chang
Interview by Roberta Tavares
RT: You have been here in Brazil before, right? What is the aspect or the “picture” (stereotype) that makes you more dragged to Brazil?
CCC: Yes, I have been in Brazil at least five times, first to exhibit my work at The Bienal de São Paulo and later to work on personal projects. I think it’s important not to have a preconceived stereotype of a place, a country or a community while photographing.. Instead, it’s helpful to be open-minded so that there is a chance for grace to join the dance.
RT: It is probably “seen” but definitely felt in your work the presence of the dilemma in the duality between Alienation & Connection. When you don’t translate it as a fight between that but a state of coexistence. Taking this principle and Thinking about that in a photographic approach …. many photographers find themselves in this tricky bouncing of not being close enough or being too close. Some can find themselves in the zone in the role of a observer, witness, in the distance. And others are functioning by the need to be part of the scene and make direct efforts for connection. For you, how does that work? To be connected…the” fly on the wall” ? How close for that to happen (for you to feel in the zone and connected)?
CCC: My personal approach to manifest the concepts of alienation and connection and to investigate the ties that bind one person to another—as well as photographer to subject—is drawn from my own deeply divided immigrant experience, first in the United States and now in Austria. I don’t really have a style, but for each project I do try and try again to define and refine the appropriate methodology so as to tell the story more effectively. So I would not advise photographers to purposely seek a style that can become a trap; rather, I would encourage them to use the camera as a tool, and photography as a language to find their own true voice and vision.
RT: It also feels to me that you, in a subtle conceptual way, you are inspired and instinctively playing with the concept of “ties”. Your books: Jet Lag,The Chain, Escape from North Korea, Double happiness, I do I do I do..Professionally you made a voice out that. How about personally? How much does that reflect on you looking in the mirror?
CCC: Projects are always personal!! A project may begin as an assignment, but I have always tried to pursue the project in a personal way. More often than not, I have continued with the project after an assignment is technically completed. When all of my projects are presented in retrospective exhibitions I hope it will be abundantly clear to viewers that all of the projects are interconnected and indeed deeply personal
Knowing better Chien- Chi Chang … check it out his photos and bio clicking at: Magnum Photos
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Magnum Caravan Brazil 2016 