Chen Chieh Jen - Interview by Studio Banana TV

Studio Banana TV interviews Taiwanese videoartist Chen Chieh Jen. Chen’s near silent works visually condense a range of human emotions such as pain and isolation to examine the social, political, and historical burdens of marginalized people and communities in Taiwan and beyond. He presented his first video work, Lingchi – Echoes of a Historical Photograph, at the 2002 Taipei Biennial. In this work, the artist reinterprets Chinese history by analyzing an early twentieth-century documentary photograph of a criminal execution in pre-modern China taken by a French soldier and made famous by the French thinker Georges Bataille. In the video works Factory, Bade Area, and On Going, the artist focuses his lens on forgotten locations and ostracized populations.