Life in the Garden of Captives #1

作品賞析

The artist Lee Tsung-Yin’s Life in the Garden of Captives #1 mainly explores the act of watching. In zoos, humans have the dominant power of watching, while the caged animals can only become the passive subjects. However, in this photograph, the zebra is not the only captive subject—there is also a woman in black hose, bending over in a posture mirroring that of the zebra. While the zebra’s head is hidden by a large stone in the foreground, the woman’s head is outside the frame of the picture. No communication or line of sight passes between the two. In the paradoxical space of the photo, the frozen figure of the woman is reduced to an object that is watched, just like the zebra; the power relationship has been deconstructed. Lee Tsung-Yin chose the zebra, because it is one of the few animals that cannot be tamed or domesticated. Meanwhile, the idea of humans being made animal-like makes us ponder human rights issues.