VISUAL REPRESENTATIONS OF AN IMAGINED RETURN FROM A TAIWANESE EXILE: AN INSTALLATION OF PHOTOGRAPHIC DIPTYCHS WITH ARTISTS’ BOOKS

Abstract

This thesis constitutes five sets of photographic work of self-portraits in diptych form within an installation, with two Artists’ Books and a written component. It explores and visualises my autobiographical condition as an exiled artist from Taiwan, seeking for an imagined return.

Firstly, it provides a critical investigation of contemporary photography in Taiwan, based on the theme of an imagined return from exile. The result of the review is that the concept of an imagined return from exile has been neglected. Secondly, it explores the thesis’s conceptual frameworks in photography and the installation. The parallel concept applied in the photographic features is ‘this-has-been’ as established by Roland Barthes in his book Camera Lucida. Further interpretation has shown how the photograph evokes a place of ‘that world’ to imagine a return.

Thirdly, the thesis examines the longing subjects for my imagined return, parents, homeland and childhood over the last sixteen years. It presents my personal journey into exile, from the countryside to the urban, and moving from the island of Taiwan to the United Kingdom. Central to the understanding of the argument is the family structure, the role of parents and the duties of the eldest son in Taiwanese culture, and the experiences of Taiwanese exile in economic terms. Fourthly, the thesis presents visual strategies for the return of the exile, and scrutinises concepts of reality and imagination in re-creating the home for the act of an imagined return. In contemplating a return, the work creates those strategies of survival in aspects of reconciling the past and redeeming myself.

The installation sets the photographic work within a metaphorical journey, a path from an empty gallery through space to a sequence of rooms presenting themes of anxiety, loss and yearning in the context of an imagined return. The diptych form is used to provide opportunities of two separate locations/situations joined in the overlapping self-portraits, giving the possibility of a visual comparison between two confronting images.

The written component combines analytic texts and images to explain and explore the nature of exile. The first part is a review of exile in contemporary photography in Taiwan. The second part is a conceptual framework of the thesis. The third part details my personal history of exile and expresses family relationships, homeland and childhood in the photographic work. The final part articulates the specific role that the photographic installation plays in representing such issues.