Traces of the Disappearing – Donated Works by LEE Ti-Chin and CHIU De-Yun

Curator | FU Yuan-Cheng 

 (Head of Taipei Office, National Center for Photography and Images) 

“A photograph is not a type of image, not merely an interpretation of real objects; it is also a trace…”

-- Susan Sontag, On Photography

Looking back upon the development of Taiwanese photography over the past hundred years, it was Realist Photography as a creative method that gradually came into vogue among photographers. Taking a direct and front-facing perspective, it reflected a microcosm of life, accumulating and recording Taiwan’s features over the years. In these images rich with realism and temporality, viewers of different generations each searched for their own point of resonance in reading the image - whether viewers near to the era from whence the work originated, seeking the lived experience of their memories, or youth discovering and listening to the stories held within the traces of the image. Different life experiences mould the multiple, overlapping, and multi-semiotic possibilities for reading photography; as such, photography does not only witness a bygone moment, but viewers can read images, using the puzzle pieces of memory to construct and imagine the sights and sounds of the image, bringing forth long-lost sentiments. 

Through the work of two photography artists born around the 1930s, Lee Ti-Chin (1928-2017) and Chiu De-Yun (1931-2014), “Traces of the Disappearing” explores how they found their beginnings in Realist Photography, capturing moving moments of life through their lens, or fixing on their homeland over the years. They each accumulated a photographic vocabulary unique to them, displaying very different facets of realist photographs. 

Lee Ti-Chin found his origin in the Photography Association activities of the 1960s, joining amateur groups such as the “Photographic Society of Tatung” and “Society of Freedom Photography Exhibition.” Using down-to-earth and unpretentious visual vocabulary, he captured the quotidian appearance of life with a click of the shutter; with the changing of the seasons, he shot the shifting appearance of the city he was deeply familiar with. In the bustling streets, he captured light, form and shadow, displaying the spirit and ethos of the photographer. Chiu De-Yun was concerned his entire life with the working class and the changes of his hometown Miaoli. In the 1960s, he grew and found his way in nativist realism, pressing close to the spirit of the land. This shaped his visual vocabulary, which expressed sentiment and warmth towards the land using strong contrasts and stark juxtapositions. After his involvement in the launch of “Hard-Neck Photography Group” in 1991, he increased his efforts to deep dive into the Miaoli countryside, documenting the laborers working the land on which they stood, as well as the decline of farming communities brought by the changing times. 

This exhibition is comprised of the large number of visual archives and works generously donated by the two photography artists, drawing upon their creative intent and the dialogue between images. Both Lee and Chiu were deeply intertwined with the spirit of realist photography as well as the values of their time. Facing urban development and rural transition, they showed different colors of photography; through their work, they span generational memory and transmission, connecting to the gaze of the viewer and alerting them to the presence of photographers past.  

Introduction of the Photographers

LEE Ti-Chin (1928-2017)

Lee Ti-Chin was born in Wanhua, Taipei. After graduating from the Taipei Industrial Institute (now National Taipei University of Technology) in 1944, Lee began working at Tatung Company in 1946. During his term as the leader of the recreation section of the company’s welfare committee, he founded the “Photographic Society of Tatung” per the request of his colleagues in 1960 and embarked on his photographic journey.

Lee’s photography revolves around quick documentation of everyday life and his surroundings. The heartwarming moments unexpectedly encountered and gleaned by the photographer in life have become realistic records that document the changes of people’s lifestyle and the urban scene as time passes. In the book, In Search of Photos Past, Chang Chao-Tang thus comments on Lee’s work, “his spontaneous and non-intrusive angles express an interest in and concern with people around him, demonstrating an ordinary sense of sincerity and preciousness in a calm, inconspicuous mood.”

Spontaneous snapshots of street and quotidian scenes or photographic narratives composed with a single photo or a combination of numerous photos convey the warm ambience of everyday life. As the cityscape evolved, Lee’s photographic subject also shifted towards portraying modern and urban forms. From realism to depicting mental images, the various creative vocabularies point to the photographer’s endeavor in keeping up with the advent of modernity, and at the same time, express the realistic documentation of fleeting moments as well as the plastic form created by the interplay of ethereal light and shadow, composing the photographer’s inner landscape.

CHIU De-Yun (1931-2014)

Chiu De-Yun born in a generationally agricultural family in a Miaoli Hakka settlement, displayed a talent for sports from a young age. After graduating from Chien Tai High School in Miaoli, he was recruited into the Chinese Petroleum Corporation (CPC) baseball team and worked at the Taiwan Oil Exploration Bureau, a CPC subsidiary located in Miaoli. Encouraged by the senior photographer in Miaoli, Chen Yen-Chuan, he joined the CPC Photography Club in 1958, marking the beginning of his journey into photographic creation. Chiu personally described the photography scene at the time as a constant debate between pictorialism and realism. However, given his grassroots background as a farmer, he wholeheartedly embraced realism in photography, taking his free time after work to immerse himself in the fields and countryside of Miaoli, and using realistic imagery to document rural life and folk traditions.

In 1975, Chiu De-Yun, along with Chen Li-Wen, Chen Yen-Chuan, Hsieh Chyi-Jeong, Lo Han-Chang, Chen Yun-Jing (David Chen), and others, co-founded the Photographic Society of Miaoli, paving the way for local photography clubs in Miaoli. In 1991, when senior members of the association advocated for the formation of the "Hard-Neck Photography Group," emphasizing a return to the essence of photography with a focus on black and white images and rural themes, with an eye towards long-term cultivation of an affective investment in the local, that he rediscovered his passion for photography and embarked on thematic series of works.

From his early documentation of his hometown in the series Hometown under the Jiali Mountain, to Sweating and Shuifuteu (The Shorts Series) which were closely intertwined with laborers, and later in the 1990s, through his lens, showcasing the temporal changes and decline of rural areas in series like Revisiting the Rural Villages and Wind Blows and Sun Shines, these series of realistic photographs span Chiu’s creative journey. Through the intense emotions conveyed in his black and white images, he communicated the profound and powerful sentiments of a dedicated photographer.