Book Launch | Wayfaring: Photography in Taiwan, 1950s–1980s

Join us for the launch of Wayfaring: Photography in Taiwan, 1950s–1980s, explores four transformative decades of photography in Taiwan, through a dozen richly illustrated essays and interviews with Taiwan photographers.

To mark the occasion, the editors Dr. Olivier Krischer and Dr. Shuxia Chen will be in conversation with Chien Yun-Ping and Professor Ari Heinrich, discussing the evolution of Taiwanese art and photography from the 1950s to the 1980s. Magda Keaney, Head Curator of International Art at the National Gallery of Australia, will offer commentary on the book and officially announce its launch.

Light refreshments will be served at 5pm.

About the book

Wayfaring: Photography in Taiwan,1950s -1980s explores four transformative decades of photography in Taiwan, tracing its evolution amid the island’s emergence from Japanese colonialism and integration into the Nationalist regime under martial law. Through a dozen richly illustrated essays and interviews, the book bridges the gap between recent vigorous Chinese-language scholarship on the subject and its limited representation in English. Taking its title from the concept of photography as a means of pathfinding, the book explores how, in the 1950s and 1960s, photography played a pivotal role in documenting local culture and everyday life, in the hands of both professionals and amateurs. In the 1970s and 1980s, photography was witness and agent of social transformation, engaging not only street protests but also issues such as environmental protection, mental health and gender politics, as well as being a vital conduit for cross-pollination in contemporary art, theatre, cinema and performance at the time.

Authors include Olivier Krischer, Shuxia Chen, Mia Yinxing Liu, Kevin Alexander Su, Anne Ma Kuo-An, Chen Chia-Chi, Lee Wei-I, Tseng Shao-Chien, Liu Chen-Hsiang, Yao Jui-Chung, Tsao Liang-Pin, Hsu Fang-Tze.

Editors

Dr Olivier Krischer is a historian and curator of modern and contemporary art and photomedia from East Asia and its diasporas. He is currently a lecturer in the MA Curating and Cultural Leadership at UNSW Art and Design, and lecturer of modern and contemporary Asian art history at the National Art School, Sydney. Previous curatorial projects include Wei Leng Tay – Abridge (2021) and Wayfaring: Photography in 1970s-80s Taiwan (2021, co-curated with Dr. Shuxia Chen); and he is editor and co-editor of John Young: The History Projects (Power Publications, 2024), Zhang Peili: from Painting to Video (ANU Press, 2019) and Asia through Art and Anthropology: Cultural Translation Across Borders (2013, with F. Nakamura, M. Perkins).

Dr. Shuxia Chen is a historian and curator of Chinese art and photography. Her research concerns cultural network, art collectives, and amateur and diasporic artistic practice in the Sinophone world. Her recent published edited volumes include Wayfaring: Photography in Taiwan, 1950s–1980s (2025), A Home for Photography Learning: The Friday Salon, 1977–1980 (2024) and Chinese Toggles: Culture in Miniature (2024). Her recent curatorial projects include ‘The trace is not a presence …’ (2024), 'Chinese Toggles: Culture in Miniature' (2023), ‘Sentient Paper’ (2022) and ‘Wayfaring: Photography in 1970s–80s Taiwan’ (2021). Chen was the inaugural curator of the China Gallery and East Asian Collections at the University of Sydney’s Chau Chak Wing Museum. She is currently a lecturer in the Master of Curating and Cultural Leadership at the University of New South Wales School of Art & Design.

Guests

Chien Yun-Ping is a researcher, curator and photographer. Chien graduated from the Department of Japanese at Tamkang University, then studied photography at Nihon University College of Art, Tokyo, from 1983, returning to Taipei in 1985. In 1988, he founded the Sunnygate Photography Gallery to exhibit the works of senior Taiwanese photographers. Since then, Chien has been exhibiting, researching, digitalising and publishing key figures of Taiwanese photography through his projects Sunnygate Phototimes (from 1998) and database ‘Insight, Taiwan’ (from 2013), funded by the National Culture and Arts Foundation. In 2017, Chien became an associate professor in the Department of Culture Vocation Development in National Taipei University of Technology. In recent years, Chien has been experimenting with historical photographic techniques, according to his concept of ‘post-digital, neo-classical.’ His exhibition, ‘Inner Landscapes: Chien Yun-Ping Alternative Photographic Processes IV’, was held at Da Xiang Art Space, Taichung, in 2021.

Ari Larissa Heinrich is Professor of Chinese Media and Literature, and Director of the Gallery at the Australian Centre on China in the World, as well as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.  He writes about contemporary visual cultures from China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, with a focus on experimental art that employs biological materials like body parts, pathological specimens, and organic chemicals. He has published books and essays on Chinese and transnational visual cultures, on medical illustration, and on queer theory, and is also known for translations of key works of queer literature from Taiwan in the late 20th century. Ari teaches experimental art writing, queer and speculative fiction, and Chinese Studies—as well as the intersections thereof—and has lectured on topics ranging from the history of medical photography to the exhibition of Chinese cadavers in internationally circulating anatomical displays. Ari’s research has been supported by the ARC Future Fellowship, the Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant, and others.

Magda Keaney is Head Curator, International Art at the National Gallery of Australia. She has worked as a curator of photographs for 25 years and has specialisations and research interests ranging from nineteenth century photography to contemporary lens-based media in a global context. Much of her work has explored how contemporary cultural practice articulates ideas around identity, gender, community and belonging. She was previously Acting Director, Collections and Curatorial at the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra; and Senior Curator of Photographs at the National Portrait Gallery London, where she led the photographs team toward the major collection re-presentation ‘Inspiring People’ including new commissions, acquisitions, and collection displays. She has curated exhibitions and published widely both on Australian and International art and recent projects include: ’Daguerreotype: Portrait Revolution’ (2023), National Portrait Gallery, London which included a collaboration with Australian First Nations artist James Tylor; ‘Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron: Portraits to Dream In’ (2024), at the National Portrait Gallery, London and ‘Carol Jerrems Portraits’ (2024) at the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra.  She is passionate about women in leadership, collaboration and diversity in the museum and gallery sector.