NATIONAL CENTER OF PHOTOGRAPHY AND IMAGES-Future Exhibitions

Since its establishment, the National Center of Photography and Images (NCPI) has been dedicated to preserving and promoting photographic culture. Currently, the NCPI has acquired over 13,000 photographic works and assets, gradually building a crucial database for researching Taiwan’s photographic culture. The 2025 NCPI Collection Exhibitions focus on Taiwan’s photographic development since the 1940s and the creation of contemporary images, featuring two thematic exhibitions: The Realm of Narrative: Witnessing and Inner Voice Behind the Lens and Profiling through the Lens: Shifting Gazes and Reframed Views in Photography. These exhibitions explore how images convey shared memories through the lens of “narrative” and “perspective,” highlighting artists’ interpretations and viewpoints.

The Realm of Narrative explores the overlapping spatial and temporal contexts of photography through three thematic subtopics: “Chronicles of Two Cities” features Chang Tsai and Wu Shao-Tung capturing everyday moments with realist images; “Noise of Youth” delves into the inner voices of Qi Deng Sheng (Liu Wu-Hsiung) and Quo Ying-Sheng amid the currents of modern thought; and “Presence and Witnessing” highlights Chang Tsang-Sang and Hsu Po-Hsin, emphasizing their brave camera work that captures on-the-spot scenes and realities. Together, these three narrative dimensions reflect the development of Taiwanese photography, which has moved from straightforward realism to modern transformation and reflective witnessing.

Profiling through the Lens showcases works by ten photographers: Hwang Pai-Chi, Hsieh San-Tai, Tsai Ming-Te, Chang Chien-Chi, Huang Tzu-Ming, Pan Hsiao-Hsia, Wang Yu-Pang, Kao Jun-Honn, Yang Shun-Fa, and Wu Cheng-Chang. The exhibition utilizes the concept of “profiling” as a metaphor to highlight how photographers add layers to and enrich reality through diverse ways of seeing. Through actions of entering, documenting, and reconstructing scenes, the exhibition emphasizes the multifaceted nature of photographic viewpoints. Photography, in this case, becomes a means of reconstructing history and memory, further exploring how images engage in dialogues with history, individuals, and society.

The 2025 NCPI Collection Exhibitions examine how images act as social memories, reflect personal emotions, and embody the zeitgeist through the dual dimensions of narrative and perspective, inviting us to reconsider the many possibilities of photography existing between archives and images: photography is not only a trace of history but also a starting point for understanding society, questioning reality, and envisioning the future.

Profiling through the Lens: Shifting Gazes and Reframed Views in Photography

Profiling through the Lens primarily focuses on the evolving and fluid nature of photographic perspectives, which further reconstructs reality as an active and engaging viewpoint. The word “profile” originally means the outline or side view of a person. When applied to psychology, it refers to a detailed and multifaceted analysis of a character used to understand personality traits, atmospheric contexts, and underlying motivations. In photography, “profiling” indicates the photographer’s process of documenting, observing, and reconstructing people, events, and issues. As a result, the images become the photographer’s “subjective expressions,” expressing their view and stance on reality. The deliberate choice of “viewing angles,” such as lens placement, distance, framing, and timing, reveals the photographer’s self-positioning and reflects the diverse, complex layers of reality.

This exhibition comprises three subthemes: “The Shifting Lens,” “Expressions of Life,” and “Disappearing Landscapes,” collectively highlighting the evolving photographic perspectives and expressive approaches in Taiwan.“The Shifting Lens” begins with Hwang Pai-Chi’s images of urban and rural changes captured in the 1960s, illustrating how photographers gradually shifted from simply documenting daily life to actively engaging with their surroundings and realities. After the 1980s, reportage and documentary photography by Hsieh San-Tai and Tsai Ming-Te reinforced images as a powerful form of historical testimony. Photographers began to participate in social scenes to highlight marginalized groups and events that were previously overlooked.

Expressions of Life explores the emotions and memories that are embedded in the body and face. Photographers, including Chang Chien-Chi, Huang Tzu-Ming, Pan Hsiao-Hsia, and Wang Yu-Pang, depict individuals with physical and mental disabilities, anti-Communist war prisoners, White Terror victims, and aging Rukai elders. They capture the struggles and resilience found throughout their life journeys, transforming images into a space where history, systems, and personal experiences interweave. Covering themes from those living on social margins to the preservation and continuation of ethnic cultures and the historical remnants of the White Terror, these images shed light on different aspects of life and deepen our understanding.

“Disappearing Landscapes” directs focus to land and environment. Photographers increasingly emphasize scenes and landscapes that were slowly fading or have been neglected due to modernization and globalization. Kao Jun-Honn, Yang Shun-Fa, and Wu Cheng-Chang provoke thought on historical and environmental issues by exploring ruins, compositing submerged scenes, and intervening in landscapes using exposure techniques, thereby expanding the possibilities of images and thematic scope through new expressive methods.

These subthemes weave together multiple photographic perspectives: photography functions both as a record of reality and a chosen way of seeing. It encapsulates history while also opening up the future. Through the work of photographers, we gain new insights into humanity, society, and land through the exchange of images, creating opportunities for dialogue and shared imagination.

Key visual image (vertical) from Hsieh San-Tai, Taiwan Style series: Jiadong, Pingtung (detail).

Key visual image (horizontal) from Hwang Pai-Chi, Air Pollution (detail).

Used with the artist’s permission.

Exhibition Themes

The Shifting Lens
The Shifting Lens
“The Shifting Lens” illustrates how photographers have increasingly focused on everyday people and landscapes since the 1960s, offering an alternative way to observe social realities. After the 1980s, reportage photography further evolved to foreground and reveal social issues even more. Photographers went directly to the scene, uncovering hidden groups and moments, providing testimony through their images and showing a deep concern for their time.Hwang Pai-Chi, originally a pediatrician, was deeply influenced by Deng Nan-Guang’s philosophy of “straight photography.” During Taiwan’s drastic urban-rural transformation in the 1960s, he wandered through city streets and alleyways, capturing scenes, people, and events that documented the old-time landscapes gradually disappearing amid urban renewal and industrial change.Hsieh San-Tai, coming from a background in news reporting, focused on social dynamics before and after the lifting of martial law, emphasizing ordinary life, workers, disadvantaged groups, and environmental issues. His Taiwan Style series, rather than being casual or flâneur-style photography, is a purposeful exploration of seldom-visited places in Taiwan—fishing ports, temple festivals, and areas in Pingtung affected by land subsidence—using images to show the passage of time and changes in labor ecology.Tsai Ming-Te’s Scenes from the Human World directly confronts the societal costs of survival in Taiwan—from mass movements before martial law was lifted to environmental and mental repression behind industrial and commercial growth. Through his lens, he reveals the deep structures of politics, labor, and ecological problems.These images demonstrate the photographers’ perspectival shifts—not just a change in their vantage points, but a direct engagement with reality, as well as a sustained gaze into society.
Expressions of Life
Expressions of Life
“Expressions of Life” centers on individual existence and the emotional experiences carried by the body. These works directly confront the subjects to highlight the human body and face, portraying the struggle and resilience that have been present throughout history and in real life, while demonstrating the photographers’ intergenerational compassion and activism.Chang Chien-Chi’s The Chain series, created over six years, captured psychiatric patients at Lung Fa Tang mental asylum, who are linked by “chains of emotions.” This method bonds two patients together, attempting to manage their conditions through mutual restraints and shared labor. Chang uses life-sized frontal portraits to highlight the chains as the central metaphor: the chains, while restricting the body, also represent limitations on relationships and institutional systems. His work transcends the objectivity of traditional reportage photography, revealing the raw and complex human conditions.Huang Tzu-Ming’s Anti-communist Tattoo on Prisoners-of-war from the Korean War exposes the physical marks on the bodies of prisoners-of-war in history. Many “anti-communist fighters” who fled to Taiwan after the Korean War tattooed anti-communist slogans on their bodies for various reasons or ideological stances while being held captive. These tattoos led to long-term separation from their families, and even after visits to Mainland China were permitted, they had to endure painful removal methods such as laser treatments, surgery, or chemicals, which left new scars. The skin thus became a living billboard of ideology and authority, also serving as a testament to the breaking of emotional bonds. Wang Yu-Pang’s Kucapungane Documentary Photography explores the life stories of elders in the Rukai tribe. The images not only capture personal memories but also represent the culture and history of the community. Wang has extensively documented the tribe’s geographical environment, lifestyle, customs, and cultural traditions, offering tangible evidence of a fading history.Pan Hsiao-Hsia’s Taiwan White Terror Human Rights History 1949~2009 is based on his interviews and long-term follow-up with White Terror victims since the 1980s. The works feature black-and-white images of victims revisiting sites or relatives holding portraits of the deceased, revealing personal stories of political persecution. Meanwhile, they also reflect deep contemplation of human rights after the lifting of martial law in Taiwan. These images serve as both documentation, questions about historical wounds, and reminders for future generations.These works transform the subjects’ faces into reflections of their lives. Each expression, tattoo, and scar acts as a starting point for a story, guiding viewers to glimpse into the complexity of human nature, the weight of history, and the unerasable regrets they carry.
Disappearing Landscapes
Disappearing Landscapes
“Disappearing Landscapes” broadens the focus to land and environment, foregrounding abandoned sites and ruins amid the waves of modernization. It also reshapes viewers’ understanding of images and issues through the use of reconstruction techniques. Kao Jun-Honn’s The Ruin Image Crystal Project combines field surveys with archival research. By re-creating and re-enacting images, it brings back spaces abandoned due to economic liberalization, reintroducing them into public memory with a new visual language.Yang Shun-Fa’s The Submerged Beauty of Formosa series combines real-life concerns with aesthetic elements. At first glance, viewers are drawn to the poetic compositions. Still, a closer look reveals houses, temples, and fish ponds submerged underwater, highlighting critical issues such as land subsidence and seawater intrusion. Using fictionalization and compositing techniques, Yang reimagines landscapes, blurring the line between nature and reality, and invites viewers to reflect on the relationship between humans and the environment.Wu Cheng-Chang’s Vision of Taiwan series examines specific landscapes shaped by economic development and cultural changes. While the series maintains the aesthetic language of landscape photography, Wu employs intense lighting on faces to create white silhouettes that suggest the public’s indifference to the environment. The series evokes reflection by blending a sense of absurdity with scenic views, raising awareness of the land while inspiring potential changes.These images reveal landscapes that are often forgotten or hidden, yet they represent the intersection of society, history, and the environment, urging us to reconsider the value and meaning of land as it fades away.