I-Hsuen Chen
untitled, from the series "Nowhere in Taiwan"
2011
Series statement: Nowhere in Taiwan is a selection of photographs made while traveling through my native country of Taiwan in the summer of 2011.
Influenced by the idea of the "road trip" in American photography, exemplified in the work of such photographers as Robert Frank, Stephen Shore, and Joel Sternfeld, I set out to find scenes and situations that seem to be "in between," neither landscape nor cityscape but existing in an ambiguous space I call “nowhere.” Some of these sites are suburban, or partly urbanized, or abandoned and left behind. The aspect of location that interests me most has to do with the traces of human presence and gesture that reside or remain. In search of nowhere, I look for unexpected instances of intimacy, so that there is a sense of "nowhere" being unveiled.