裂缝；相逢

Artist Bio: Liu Chang, born and working in Beijing, studied at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) for a master's degree in Photography. Liu's works focus on global environmental issues, exploring the tensions and conflicts in the relationships between humans and nature, as well as humans and animals. Liu Chang aims to reflect on the phenomenon of human behavior towards animals, asking the question of "why stare at animals" from a perspective rooted in photography philosophy.

Work Statement:
Animals have always been objects of human gaze, both in life and in artworks. John Berger's essay 'Why the Animal Gaze' provides an exhaustive account of the human act of gazing at animals, and the artist's work has benefited from it. Gaze theory as a Western philosophical theory is closely related to topics such as subjectivity, otherness and the desire for power, and in gazing at animals, humans complete the construction of their self-identity. In the age of the image, with the shift in viewing styles, the image of the animal gaze has become a somewhat common visual status quo. The study of the gaze has added a new dimension to contemporary photography on the subject of animals, both at the level of viewing and at the level of creation. After two years of research and observation of visitors gazing at animals in the Beijing Zoo (2019-2021), the artist chose the relationship between the animal house murals and the animals in the zoo as the point of entry for his work. The photographs in this work were taken at the zoo and printed for secondary creation. People are familiar with photographs, but rarely notice the photographs themselves. The photograph is not only a vehicle for presenting the content of the image, but also a paper object. Time and space are compressed into a thin sheet of paper in response to the symbolic space created by the 'pseudo-nature' depicted behind the animals. In the words of Susan Sontag, "A photograph is both a thin slice of space and time." A photograph is a piece of paper, a thin slice of space and time, and the pseudo-nature behind the wildlife is once again compressed into the photograph. The cracks created cut through both the photograph and the fence decorated as nature, both physically 'destroying' the paper photograph and 'destroying' the pseudo-natural fence drawn in the image. In addition, the cracks create an unknown space and time, through which light passes, mixing the imaginary world with the real one, demonstrating the contradictions and assumptions of an unknown time and space, as well as the tensions and conflicts in the relationship between man and nature.
The artist observed many viewers at the exhibition looking at the works for a long time. After talking to the viewers, some of them gave feedback that they strongly felt the loneliness of the animals and were aware of the phenomenon of wild animals being kept in captivity. Others were surprised that they had not noticed the murals at all when they went to the zoo to see the animals. As the invisible mechanisms of power that are obscured are transformed into visible images through the language of the photographic medium, the large scale works awaken the viewer to a familiar and unfamiliar experience of viewing, engaging in the production of meaning through the representation and metaphor of the image. By gazing at the animals in the images, the viewer gazes at the invisible power and desire.