Identity, Visibility, and Constraint.
My portrait practice explores how identity is shaped, constrained, and negotiated under social, cultural, and institutional forces. Across themes of gender, sexuality, migration, and media representation, I am drawn to moments where people adapt themselves, sometimes quietly, sometimes reluctantly, to fit systems that were not designed with them in mind. While my academic research examines these dynamics in algorithmic and technological systems, photography allows me to study them at the level of lived experience, embodiment, and presence.
ISLANDS, ANN CHEN (2024)
FINE ART MATTE PAPER PRINTS
376 CM X 135 CM
"Islands" reflects my personal cultural experiences as a Taiwanese woman moving to Singapore. This is a story of migration, exploring the loss of an old identity in a new land, and the loss caused by a new identity in an old land. These portraits were taken in Singapore. Through the portrayal of interactions between a Taiwanese woman and a suitcase—examining their distance, how she grasps or conceals the suitcase, her facial expressions, and body gestures—I attempted to comment on how one alters or discards their identity in response to residing in a foreign land.
MEDIA AND CONSUMPTION, ANN CHEN (2024)
WOOD AND FINE ART MATTE PAPER PRINTS
765 CM X 279 CM
How do we consume, compress, and perceive the body in advertisements, media, and the world? The wrapping of the body, the wrapping of the model, and the display of an image of that wrapping all contribute to this process. I worked with a young female model in her twenties, who reflects the ways she is asked to wrap her body for advertisements promoting luxury brands. Through this relationship—between the wrapping of the body and the wrapping of the image—a multilayered compression of the real body image emerges, blurring the lines between what is done and what is seen.
HUMANNESS, ANN CHEN (2024)
FINE ART MATTE PAPER PRINTS
558 CM X 558 CM
Despite recent progress in LGBTQ rights in Singapore—where male same-sex relations were officially legalized in 2022, after being de facto decriminalized since 2007— there remains limited protection against discrimination and no recognition of same-sex unions. As someone who grew up in Taiwan, where LGBTQ rights are passionately and loudly supported, it was disheartening for me to witness my Singaporean LGBTQ friends sometimes hiding their identities out of practicality. In this series of four portraits of the same Singaporean male, I experiment with darkness and the act of guarding as central aesthetic strategies to explore the fragmentation and concealment of minority identity, reflecting its relationship with external forces.
Event Photography
My portrait practice explores how identity is shaped, constrained, and negotiated under social, cultural, and institutional forces. Across themes of gender, sexuality, migration, and media representation, I am drawn to moments where people adapt themselves, sometimes quietly, sometimes reluctantly, to fit systems that were not designed with them in mind. While my academic research examines these dynamics in algorithmic and technological systems, photography allows me to study them at the level of lived experience, embodiment, and presence.
