Kuan Chao
I am from Taiwan and currently in Australia on a working holiday while continuing my practice. I primarily work with analogue film, focusing on how people exist within their environments and the traces left behind by time. Since learning to work in the darkroom, I have become increasingly interested in the film itself, experimenting with different ways of handling and altering it, and thinking about photography not only as an image, but as a physical medium with its own presence.
Scars of Time (I)
120 film, Archival Inkjet Print
TBC
$650AUD Framed / $450AUD Unframed
Scars of Time (II)
120 film, Archival Inkjet Print
TBC
$650AUD Framed / $450AUD Unframed
Scars of Time (III)
120 film, Archival Inkjet Print
TBC
$650AUD Framed / $450AUD Unframed
"Scars of Time" began with my growing doubt about the assumed truthfulness of photography. Photography is often regarded as a stable and reliable way of recording reality, but I became aware that this sense of truth largely depends on the expectation that the image remains intact and untouched.
In this series, I deliberately intervene in the film surface, allowing scratches, pressure marks, and damage to remain visible. These traces are not decorative; they reveal the fragility and mutability of the photographic image. Once the film is physically altered, the photograph no longer functions purely as a transparent window onto reality, but as a material object shaped by time and human action.
Although the scenes appear documentary, their surfaces resist complete trust. Through this instability, I aim to loosen our dependence on photography as unquestioned evidence and instead invite a reconsideration of what we believe an image can truly represent.