NATIONAL CENTER OF PHOTOGRAPHY AND IMAGES-Current Exhibitions

Interweaving the visual and non-visual, Obscured Portraits: Seen and Unseen addresses essential questions regarding watching versus being watched, and seeing versus not seeing. Using the lens of photography history, it explores how images shape our understanding of existence and non-existence. Navigating distinct perceptual layers and social contexts, the exhibition unfolds across two primary themes: “Boundaries of the Gaze” and “Perceptions Beyond Sight.” Through this framework, it investigates the power dynamics of blind portraiture, the potential of non-visual photography, and cultural representations of disability and class.

“Boundaries of the Gaze” focuses on the blind and how the visually impaired perceive the world through their senses. In the “Who Cannot See?” section, international works spanning from the 19th century to the present are anchored by classic portraits from the J. Paul Getty Museum collection. Photos of street beggars and musicians trace the historical trajectory of the blind being viewed as “social others” during the nascent stages of visual culture. These images compel us to ask: Were blind subjects aware of being photographed? How are their bodies represented within the frame? Viewers reflect on a fundamental question: For whom does the image ultimately exist?

Beyond classic portraiture, the “Beyond Vision” section showcases works by visually impaired photographers from Slovenia, Mexico, Japan, and Taiwan, as well as video installations by a Korean artist reinterpreting the photography of a Japanese visually impaired creator. These artists replace traditional visual composition with faint light, sound, texture, memory, and writing. They challenge the hegemony of the visual, developing unique creative methodologies such as inscribing Braille onto photographic paper. Using auditory or somatic experiences as a basis for their compositions, they generate images through non-visual perception. By redefining “seeing” through bodily experiences and social observations, they reexamine and reconstruct the language of imagery itself.

“Perceptions Beyond Sight,” meanwhile, shifts focus from the blind as subjects of the gaze to overlooked social perceptions. This theme emphasizes commentary and cultural politics inherent in the relationship between disability and class. It features works by sighted photographers and contemporary artists that address themes of blindness, impairment, tactility, and social stratification. The “Tactile Signal” section transcends the visual to explore perceptual boundaries between body and sense, image and matter, and the visible and invisible. Another section, “Disabled Society,” expands the sub-theme of “Who Cannot See?” to further reinterpret blind portraiture. Anchored on works by Taiwanese photographers from the collection of the National Center of Photography and Images (NCPI), it places the intersectionality of gender, disability, and social class within a local context, revealing how marginalized groups are represented, labeled, or objectified within the ecosystem of imagery.

Further, the section “Obscura Operation” is arranged as a pitch-black, darkroom-like experiential space. It features photography by five young visually impaired Taiwanese artists and collections from NCPI, accompanied by tactile information and audio descriptions. The audience touches and listens in the dark, discovering how the senses converge to “read” images. Ultimately, this exhibition explores both aesthetics and photography’s role as a medium for social intervention. As a documentary tool, photography historically shaped the collective image of the disabled, supporting both exclusion and observation. Contemporary photographic practice, however, is self-aware of power dynamics and equality. It seeks to dismantle visual hegemony, respond to the politics of disability, and expand perceptual boundaries.

Perceptions Beyond Sight

On this floor the narrative shifts from the historical gaze to somatic perception and a critique of social structures. Centered on the theme “Perceptions Beyond Sight,” the exhibition attempts to unearth the epistemological value of touch, sound, and body memory within our visually dominant culture. Contemporary art installations invite viewers to suspend their reliance on vision, turning instead to the skin, hearing, and smell to read the space and its narratives. The narrative also returns to the social context of Taiwan, exploring how disabilities are not just individual physiological impairments, but also outcomes constructed by social environments and systems. Through the collection of the National Center of Photography and Images, we see how the body of people with visual impairments and blindness is shaped within labor systems, gender norms, and legal restrictions.

Exhibition Themes

Who Cannot See
Who Cannot See
In the “Who Cannot See?” section of “Perceptions Beyond Sight,” the perspective shifts back to Taiwan to explore how local documentary photography records and represents the lived experiences of the visually impaired. Distinct from the detached social inquiry typical of early Western photography, Taiwanese photographic practice from the post-war era to the present is imbued with a thick layer of humanitarian concern and social critique. Works from the collection of the NCPI that are displayed here show figures with visual impairments and blindness traversing villages, temple courtyards, and urban corners. They appear as itinerant Nakasi musicians, laborers in the massage industry, or figures of resistance in social movements. These images record not only livelihoods among the blind and the visually impaired but also changes to body politics amid Taiwan’s social transformations. We see how the blind and the visually impaired moved from the margins of traditional society towards advocating for rights in the public sphere. However, even when looking from a warm local perspective, we must remain vigilant. Do these images still replicate negative stereotypes? Does the decisive moment captured by the photographer obscure the complex agency that visually impaired individuals possess in their daily lives? The historically weighted images in this section invite viewers to look past earlier views of the blind and reflexively examine our own habitual ways of viewing disability.
Disabled Society
Disabled Society
Disability is not only a bodily state, but also a product of society. Showing works from the collection of the NCPI, this section unravels the logic of governance and the cultural representations of the physically and mentally challenged in Taiwanese society. From Chang Chien-Chi’s arresting series The Chain, to Hou Lulu Shur-Tzy’s exploration of gender and body politics, to records of life on the margins by various documentary photographers, these images present the arduous journey of Taiwan’s transition from a “charity model” to a “medical model” and “social model” of disability. In particular, the rise, fall, and transformation of the blind massage industry reflect how laws and institutions circumscribe the life choices of the disabled. The curatorial team juxtaposes these historical archives with contemporary perspectives, inviting viewers to reflect: How do our social spaces, legal systems, and cultural biases systematically manufacture “disability”? And how can imagery serve as a medium to propel social inclusion?
Tactile Signal
Tactile Signal
Beyond the visual, how does the body remember and perceive the world? This section presents works by Taiwanese contemporary artists Niu Jun-Qiang, Jiang Yu-Cheng, and Wang Yung-An, who attempt to construct sensory fields centered on tactility. Niu’s work punches Braille into cowhide, evoking a metaphor between skin and touch. Jiang’s large-scale installation reconstructs the workplace of a blind masseur, using scent and sound to demonstrate the mastery and agency of a blind body at work. Wang, meanwhile, combines neuroscience with AI algorithms to explore how tactile signals have become “ghost variables” overlooked by the digital age. By emphasizing that touch is not a substitute for vision, these works present a more primal and intimate epistemology. Their materiality and interactivity guide viewers to “touch” those invisible signals and experience a reality defined by the skin.