Out of the Shadows | Chou Ching-hui
After a year of “journalistic labor,” Chou Ching-Hui started becoming aware that he needed a space for himself and self-expression. Twelve years after photographing the Lo-Sheng Sanatorium, he revisits the Out of Shadows series. The remnant images seem to have predicted the sanitorium’s fate of unavoidable disappearance, leaving only the black-and-white images to recount the endless cycle of life, death and feeling of helplessness in the wards. The audience today can only perceive the realty and time preserved in the photographs and the traces of faded existences through the discolored names, the images of the space, and the notes of archive photos.
To Chou, “the external things disturb the dark box of the camera,” and the dark box within his mind, on the other hand, seems to disturb the external world as well. The reason why he takes photos has baffled him. According to Chou, “I always disobey reality yet make too many compromises, being a clever clog trying to gain freedom in photography through different means and only to get myself stuck eventually.
I make photography projects because I need to set a direction for my drifting soul. I tell myself repeatedly that photography calms my mind, but I feel constantly torn inside as well as the incessant struggles and conflicts, as if self-contradiction has become a prerequisite to the completion of a project. When facing these conflicts alone, I push myself towards the edge of breaking apart. I am fascinated with the illusion of death, pain, and disappearance. I think that I continue doing photography because I am afraid that I will not do it again.”