The Umcebo Gallery has organised an exhibition of two photographers, one French and the other Taiwanese, having worked and photographed the two main cities of Taiwan: Taipei and Tainan.
Through their series “Close On” and “The Sleepless”, Elodie Lachaud and Mu-Shen Yen bring a different point of view on the daily life and animation of these two Taiwanese cities.
Opening on October 8, in the presence of the artists.
Exhibition from October 10 to October 31, 2019
Elodie Lachaud – Close On
Intimate space and public space.
Elodie Lachaud seeks to capture the energy and soul of the places she crosses …
Her artistic research revolves around movement, space, memory and intimacy.
At the same time, introspective and retrospective, travels constantly nourish her creativity.
In February 2018 she made an artist residency in Tainan. The city inspires her a photographic series, a video installation and several performances. Through these media, Elodie Lachaud sets ghostly traces, emotions, sensory states, questions, awareness and glances on what surrounds her.
In Tainan City, people use to dry clothes, on clothes racks or hang them on the street furniture. In this way clothes change position during the day, in search of sun or wind. The occupants of the houses also have the habit of settling in front of the houses, on the road, to exchange between neighbors and friends.
Under the pretext of looking for bubble tea, Elodie Lachaud walks the streets of downtown, photography testimonies of everyday life in every detail.
She seeks to know the inhabitants of the city through the traces they leave, trying to identify the members of the same family or guess the conversations.
The series shows streets devoid of human presence, but resolutely alive. The company of the inhabitants, represented by the clothes they have worn, or the empty chairs on which they sat, can be seen in every shot.
Mu-Shen Yen – The Sleepless
Whether in the East or in the West, night or day, cities are the collective display of human civilizations. For some reason, cities at night charm and bewitch people even more; during the night, we need all sorts of artificial light to see the face of the city. In other words, the city at night is an even closer examination of the human civilization.
I wander the city at night and heed its calling. The relationship people have with a city is completely different during day and night. During the day, the many wants and desires humans show are apparent, masculine, collective. But at night, the wants and desires are hidden, obscure, and most important of all, private. We are more honest in showing these wants and desires at night than we are during the day. The city at night is an explosion of human desire, seemingly quite on the surface, but underneath it all, it is slowing brewing the wants and needs of hunts and conflicts, expressed by the people who inhabit it.
Taipei. The city I live in, the city I express my wants and desire in; but do I truly embrace and understand its hidden reality? I agree, like many photographers, that trying to photograph an entire city is an arrogant and irresponsible undertaking. Therefore, this series of images is not me trying to debate the reality of Taipei city. Each of these photographs is just a simple reflection of what my senses experienced at the time of the click of the shutter. These fragmented clues will allow the audience to reconstruct the city I call ‘The Sleepless’.
