VOP Issue 8 : TRANCE AMONGST OBJECTS

Why observe "objects"? Photography offers us a chance to gaze, to extract and magnify objects from the context of life, transforming our attention to everyday matter into a new narrative. Our gaze explores or avoids within objects, seemingly drawing closer yet also becoming more distant.

In this issue of "Voices of Photography," Chen Xiaoyun, through her fictional anthology "Zhui Ku Lu Zhu," playfully explores meaning within image-texts featuring withered branches and titled texts; Jiang Zhi pours his emotions into flammable flora, burning ephemeral love letters and whispered secrets; Kishi Kota collects discarded items from the roadside to create new images, piecing together a dialogue between appearances and objects; Chen Wei, on the other hand, uses everyday objects as a silent theater, demonstrating the non-everyday aspects of objects in daily life.

This issue's Artist's Showcase features photographer Kikuchi Tomoko, whose "I and I" series, which recently won the Kimura Ihei Award, documents Chinese drag queens over many years, using photography to touch upon the repressed and sensitive issue of sexuality in contemporary China. Furthermore, in this issue's Q section, we also interview Japanese photography critic Iizawa Kotaro about his views on the role of photography criticism; we also engage in a dialogue with veteran designer Fukasawa Naoto and photographer Fujii Takeshi to explore the intermediary relationship between objects and photography; and through Ota Kosuke's lens, which delves into the Fukushima nuclear disaster exclusion zone, we discover the innocent animals forgotten by the world in the nuclear inferno, sounding the alarm for a catastrophe in human civilization. In addition, this issue also features the "History of Taiwanese Photography" by photographer Xiao Yongsheng, which will trace the historical trajectory of Taiwanese photography in a serialized format.