Installation View of Untitled (You know what I mean, right?), 2019
Inkjet print on wreath, 3 x 5 feet
Installation view of Billboard for rent, 2022
Archival glossy print and round stickers, 10 x 14 inches
Exhibition view of The Political Theater in Gallery 101, Korea, 2022
The Political Theater
2018 - 2022
Voting is a direct means for citizens to construct an ideal society. Although democracy is a well-known concept worldwide, what happened in Taiwan is actually one-of-a-kind—the issue of unification and independence of the island, its extremely high population density, and the political parties delivering democracy as convenience stores. Bored citizens take on the wibbly-wobbly bus to enjoy free lunches and drinks, participating in the surrounding world with handy props and being glad to enrich their daily lives with these events.
However, on the other hand, younger generations are generally indifferent toward and distrust politics. They consider that forms of public engagement do not confine to the endless pursuit of resources, and believe that the power from themselves can dismantle the sophisticated benefit-based relationships to establish a citizen society they trust. Nonetheless, the political expressions of younger generations are drowned by doubts from all over society, making their ideal a faraway place that they can’t reach.
Chang-Ching “Casper” Su worked as a collaborating photographer with two confronting candidates respectively in 2018 and 2022 in the same city, attempting to represent the weird but familiar, realistic but magical social deployment around them through the cracks of images’ infrathin.