Join us at UNSW Galleries to celebrate the Sydney launch of the new publication Wayfaring: Photography in Taiwan, 1950s–1980s. Hear from the editors Dr Shuxia Chen and Dr Olivier Krischer in conversation with contributing author Dr Kevin Alexander Su, as they discuss the evolution of photography in Taiwan from the 1950s to the 1980s.
About the book
Bridging a significant gap between Chinese and English language scholarship, Wayfaring explores four transformative decades of photography in Taiwan, tracing its evolution amid the island’s emergence from Japanese colonialism and integration into the Nationalist regime under martial law. In the 1950s and 1960s, photography played a pivotal role in documenting local culture and everyday life, in the hands of both professionals and amateurs. In the 1970s and 1980s, photography was witness and agent of social transformation, as well as being a vital conduit for cross-pollination in contemporary art, theatre, cinema and performance at the time.
Authors include Olivier Krischer, Chen Shuxia, Mia Yinxing Liu, Kevin Alexander Su, Anne Ma Kuo-An, Chen Chia-Chi, Lee Wei-I, Tseng Shao-Chien, Liu Chen-Hsiang, Yao Jui-Chung, Tsao Liang-Pin, Hsu Fang-Tze.
Wayfaring: Photography in Taiwan, 1950s–1980s is published by Australian Centre on China in the World, the Australian National University (ANU). It has been generously supported by the ANU Taiwan Studies Program 2022–25, which is a partnership between the College of Asia and the Pacific at ANU and the Ministry of Education, Republic of China (Taiwan).
Speakers
Dr Chen Shuxia is a historian and curator of Chinese art and photography. She is the editor and author of A Home for Photography Learning: The Friday Salon, 1977–1980 (2024) and Chinese Toggles: Culture in Miniature (2024). Her curatorial projects include ‘The Trace is Not a Presence …’ (2024), ‘Sentient Paper’ (2022) and ‘Wayfaring: Photography in 1970s–80s Taiwan’ (2021). Chen was the inaugural curator of the China Gallery and East Asian Collections at the University of Sydney’s Chau Chak Wing Museum. She is a Senior Lecturer at UNSW School of Art & Design.
Dr Olivier Krischer is a historian and curator of art from East Asia and the Asian Australian diaspora, whose research concerns modern and contemporary transcultural art, photography and intermedia practices. His curatorial projects include ‘Assembly’ (2023), featuring eight Hong Kong-born artists, ‘Wayfaring: Photography in 1970s–80s Taiwan’ (2021) and ‘Between: Picturing 1950–1960s Taiwan’ (2016). His publications include John Young: The History Projects (2024), Zhang Peili: From Painting to Video (2019) and Asia through Art and Anthropology: Cultural Translation Across Borders (with F. Nakamura and M. Perkins, 2013). Krischer is a Lecturer at UNSW School of Art & Design.
Dr Kevin Alexander Su is head of the Creative Industries program at UTS College, Sydney. His present research interests include Taiwanese art, photography and fashion histories. His recent writing is published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art and Fashion Theory, and he is currently a co-editor of Critical Studies in Men’s Fashion (Intellect).
Image
Cover of Wayfaring: Photography in Taiwan, 1950s–1980s (2025), featuring Lien Hui-Ling, Kaohsiung, 1987.