A Place

作品賞析

The art of Hu Chao-Tsung often explores the techniques and processes of “intervening” in a space. In A Place, he records the process of township development projects in Taiwan, which begins by using fences and cement walls to block the spaces, and then erecting notices. These man-made elements of construction sites change the appearance of the landscape and reestablish public and private domains, to the point that when people read “Do not enter unless invited,” they mentally draw an invisible boundary. The plants poking out from behind the wall are still enjoying the sunshine, but from the the dark fence in the foreground, the artist’s yearning for the natural landscape is self-evident. A “place” as defined by the artist is a space infused with meaning. As soon as an intervention occurs there, a connection is produced between humans and the space, and how the connection will be received and interpreted depends on the individual’s identification with and imagination of the space. Each site that makes us feel strange or alienated may be someone else’s “place.”