For this interview, we talked to Chen Tianqiutao about his project Seen/Unseen, currently on view as part of our annual outdoor exhibition, Vision(ary).
Website: www.chentqt.com
Instagram: @chentqt
Tianqiutao, we are honored to be showcasing your project Seen/Unseen as part of our annual outdoor public installation, Vision(ary). Please tell us, what inspired you to create this series of portraits of migrant children?
Tianqiutao Chen: When I was in China, I used to be a voluntary photographer for an NGO called Vibrant Future which provided afterschool programs for the migrant children in Beijing. I established associations with the kids during my service in two migrant villages and started photographing them.
After documenting the children for some time, I felt that I could never capture the essence of their lives, and what they were experiencing, so I decided to develop this project using photography as a participatory field research method and social practice, collaborating with the kids and enabling them to tell their own stories photographically.
It’s incredibly powerful that you also taught these children the basics of photography and supplied them with disposable film cameras to document their daily lives. What did you envision the impact of these photos would bring them, their community and the viewers?
TC: Through taking snapshots, the kids paid a little more attention to the “everyday” and practiced capturing meaningful moments and stories, which cultivated their self-expression and visual storytelling abilities. More importantly, they became more confident as creative individuals.
The photos taken by the children showcasing their daily lives provided the viewers with first-person perspectives of those true insiders, which were often unseen. Our collaboration and several resulting exhibitions brought more exposure and public attention to the migrant people in Beijing and mobilized more social support and services for their community.
We love that you’re touching on how art can bring about social change. When working on a project with minors and complex social issues, it’s inevitable to run into difficulties. Could you please share any challenges or setbacks you encountered?
TC: Planning and organizing this collaboration in the early stage were challenging. I had to go back and forth, negotiating with the NGO, so I could utilize their space to meet with the children and have access to more potential participants. Recruiting was also not easy. I had to talk with not only the kids but also their parents to let them know who I was and what we were planning to do. Some parents didn’t want their children to be “distracted” from their schoolwork, but luckily, most of them were open and supportive.
How did you approach or interact and connect with the children as you photographed them in their everyday environments?
TC: The portraits I took for the children were also collaborative endeavors. I asked them to decide where they wanted to be photographed, choosing the environment and background. They would take me to places that they thought were significant to them. For instance, some chose the road to school, the back alley of their houses, or where their homes used to be. After they had decided on the background, I would take portraits for them as a cold observer.
It’s great to hear this project honored these children’s sense of agency. Could you please share what you learned from them, their experiences and their communities?
TC: Our collaboration allowed me to gain a more well-rounded observation and deeper understanding of the complicated living conditions and social status of the migrant people community in China’s urban centers. I’m impressed by the children’s straightforward and unfiltered visual recordings of their lives. Their photographs showcased a lot of vivid and intimate moments as well as many compelling and unique vantage points, which I could never reach and capture. Also, this project helped me investigate the possibilities of photography and explore its boundaries with social practice and activism.
In addition to the photographs, you chose to have the children write about themselves in accompanying text pieces. What can we learn about these narratives?
TC: The text and photos are reciprocal to each other. The written pieces helped articulate their true thoughts and reflect the complexity of China’s urbanization causing their displacement. All the photographs the children took showed their curiosity and passion for the world. However, they did have different and sometimes opposite opinions and feelings about being displaced in Beijing, away from their hometowns. Some of the kids disliked their living conditions, feeling lonely and bored in Beijing, whereas some enjoyed where they were, being able to blend in and make new friends in Beijing.
Chen Tianqiutao is an artist and educator working in China and the United States. Chen earned a BFA in Photography from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing and received an MFA in Photography and an MA in Art + Design Education from the Rhode Island School of Design.
Chen’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the Center for Photography at Woodstock (Woodstock, NY), ClampArt (New York, NY), Photographic Center Northwest (Seattle, WA), Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts (Providence, RI), Figge Art Museum (Davenport, IA), Minneapolis College of Art and Design (Minneapolis, MN), CAFA Art Museum (Beijing, China), Minsheng Art Museums (Beijing, China), DongGang International Photo Festival (Yeongwol, South Korea), Taipei International Photo Festival (Taipei, Taiwan), and Copenhagen Photo Festival (Copenhagen, Denmark), among others. His work was selected for the 2022 Critical Mass Top 50. His photobook The Last Post won the Lucie Photo Book Prize for the Independent Publishing Category and was shortlisted for the Images Vevey Book Award.
Currently, Chen is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Art in the Department of Art and Art History at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois.
Interview by Vicente Isaias and Anya Wallace
