Chien-Chi Chang
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Chien-Chi Chang (張乾琦), (born 1961) is a Taiwanese photographer and member of the Magnum Photos agency. Born to working-class parents in central Taiwan, he earned his BA from Soochow University, in 1984, and an MS from Indiana University in 1990. He has worked for The Seattle Times (1991-1993) and The Baltimore Sun (1994-1995). Chang has documented the life of illegal immigrants in New York's Chinatown, but he is also known for documenting his homeland of Taiwan. He won the W. Eugene Smith Fund for Humanistic Photography in 1999.
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[edit] Notable works
- The Chain (2002) : documenting inmates at the Long Fa Tang ("Temple of the Dragon") in Taiwan. The inmates, numbering about 600, are mentally ill patients no longer recognized by their families. The mental institution's inmates work on the island's largest chicken farm, often chained together in pairs, separated only when they sleep.
- I Do I Do I Do (2002) : in response to his parents' pressure to marry, Chang began photographing newlywed couples in Taiwan. The work has been repeatedly described as "a jaundiced look at marriage", including images such as a couple still in their wedding garb asleep separately at the back of a limousine, and a bride picking a backdrop for her wedding photos in a field of ruins. Finally, Chang got married in 2004 with an ex-journalist who is currently the president of the Radio Taiwan International. The marriage was kept really low profile as most of their friends learned about their union from the gossip of others.
[edit] Inspiration
From Magnum : "Chien-Chi Chang has always been fascinated by the human conditions of alienation and connection.[...] This meditation on the nature of the ties that bind a person to others and to society is a natural outgrowth of Chang's own experience of the divided life of an immigrant."
