On Working Around Photography: Interview with Ching-Wei Wang
Ching-Wei Wang, Maintain Status Quo Indefinitely (2024), performance at the Arnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries. Courtesy of the artist.
The coarse sound of scratching sandpaper introduces the meditative performance of Maintain Status Quo Indefinitely (2024), in which Taiwanese artist Ching-Wei Wang gradually obscures and removes a black-and-white image of the 228 Incident—a 1947 anti-government uprising in Taiwan that was violently suppressed—staining her hands, knees, feet, and blackening her beige dress. Presented at Wang’s MFA Photography 2024 thesis exhibition, Wang’s two works signal at Taiwan’s complex geopolitics through an expanded approach to the photographic medium.
In her interview with IMPULSE, Wang discusses her performance and text-based practice and its relation to photography. She also delves into how she contextualizes her work outside of Taiwan and the personal politics that inform her creative process as an artist working in New York.
Annette An-Jen Liu: Your 2024 thesis exhibition at Parsons presented two works: a graphic installation and a performance series. How did these works come about, and how do you view or define them within the photographic medium?
Way Wang: I’ve always held a critical view of photography, especially regarding its cultural perception as a medium closely tied to a “truthful” reality in art. In these two works, I shift the power of photography—almost by happy accident—toward the audience, rather than using it as my own expressive tool. For instance, with the text installation Country within Country (2024), when viewers take photos with their phones, their framing choices reveal their personal ideologies: decisions on which characters to include or exclude, and where to position them within the frame. Similarly, with Maintain Status Quo Indefinitely, the ephemeral nature of the performance means the work relies on photography not just for archival documentation, but also to build a complete picture of the work, the audience capturing different angles and details, which ultimately contributes to the work itself. In a way, the audience becomes part of the performance. In both works, photography plays a role from the viewer’s end, helping activate the conceptual framework.
I think of my approach as working “around” photography rather than directly “on” it. The process is like continually walking along the edges of a park to observe its dynamics, where the distance allows for a clearer critical view. Photography is where my artmaking began, but over time, I’ve become more curious about how, as an artist engaging with it from a distance, I can frame reality from a broader, perhaps more detached perspective.
Installation view of Ching-Wei Wang’s thesis presentation at The New School. Courtesy of the artist.
AL: Maintain Status Quo Indefinitely definitely works “around” photography, centering around one black-and-white image of the 228 Incident that you obscure and eventually erase throughout your performance. How did you decide to engage with this particular history through performance?
WW: In 2022, I came across an interview with Cheng Chu-Mei, the daughter of Cheng Nan-jung, an activist and publisher who self-immolated and remains a contested figure in Taiwanese history. Especially compelling was Chu-Mei’s account of the tension between seeing Cheng as a loving father and a historical figure who prioritized collective justice over himself.
My research on Cheng naturally led me to the 228 Incident and its lasting impact on Taiwanese society. Cheng Nan-jung once wrote, “I was born in the year of the 228 Incident, and that event has troubled me all my life because I am mixed-blooded.” It’s a statement that encapsulates layers of identity, history, and trauma, reflecting the complexities of what it means to identify as Taiwanese.
In the winter of 2022, I began burning a small-scale image of the 228 Incident each day, exploring the idea of rituals—how people mourn, grieve, and commemorate, and how historical events are monumentalized and can become abstracted over time. Later, this daily ritual evolved into the performance Maintain Status Quo Indefinitely.
The image I use has remained consistent—it was actually the first result that appeared when I searched for the 228 Incident on Google. Its ubiquity intrigued me, and I was struck by its symbolism. The image depicts people burning tobacco and goods—commodities monopolized by the government—as an act of protest on February 28, 1947. What followed was violent government suppression, escalating into a massacre with continuously varied death toll figures. The event marked the beginning of almost four decades of martial law in Taiwan, during which the 228 Incident became taboo.
Engaging with this history, my performance examines how individuals and society navigate collective trauma and subsequent resistance.
Ching-Wei Wang, Maintain Status Quo Indefinitely (2024), performance at the Arnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries. Courtesy of the artist.
AL: These works are incredibly nuanced but the artwork captions in the exhibition were brief. Who is or was your intended audience? How did you contextualize it in a New York setting?
WW: When working with languages other than English in the US, there’s always the challenge of deciding whether or not to translate for audiences to better understand the work. In my thesis presentation, I chose not to provide the service of translation for the New York setting because the nuances between traditional and simplified Chinese are central to the work—they are the work itself. By deciding not to translate, I am placing trust in the audience, believing that those intrigued will either figure out the translation on their own or through my brief, almost dictionary-like captions.
I am delving into the visual qualities of language, spotlighting Chinese characters as either compound ideographs or indicatives, both of which incorporate pictorial elements in their structure.
Ching-Wei Wang, detailed view of Country within Country (2024), installation with graphite on wall. Courtesy of the artist.
AL: What was the response from your peers and teachers when you developed and presented this work in New York, outside of Taiwan?
WW: Over the past two years, my practice has been questioned and challenged, both within and beyond school. I value these discussions, as they push me to reflect critically on my intentions and artistic choices. In general, I find New York audiences to be open, direct, and curious, and I believe there is a meaningful space for Taiwanese identity here.
AL: Can you share how your experience of studying foreign languages and literatures at the National Taiwan University developed your artistic practice? And its relation to your text-based works?
WW: The Foreign Languages and Literatures Department at National Taiwan University is comparable to an English major in the US. While people often joke that students can’t learn anything technical in a literature major, I’ve come to recognize how profoundly these studies shaped my critical thinking. The extensive training in literary analysis helps me to understand work that’s challenging to grasp at first by contextualizing it. It’s become an instinct, one that’s been crucial in developing my conceptual thinking in art. These influences took time to reveal their impact on my artistic practice, but they’re always present, like a good friend or mentor guiding me to reflect and challenge my perspectives.
My language-based experimental practice began with renaming myself as “Way” in the US, a gesture at my attempt to adapt to an English-speaking environment. The name ‘Way’ comes from the last character of my Chinese name, Wei (薇). I like how ‘way/Way’ is both a common noun and a proper noun. It captures my position between two languages and cultures. I don’t insist on using my translated Chinese name, however, adopting a typical English name—a common experience for many Taiwanese, including me in the past—felt misaligned with who I am.
Beyond my name, my text-based works also reflect how I navigate between English and Chinese. Before my thesis presentation, I created three other text pieces using only English. I refer to these as “found” texts, as I see myself collecting rather than creating with English. For a long time, I avoided using Chinese characters in my work, worried they might be viewed through an orientalist gaze in the US and misrepresent my subject matter. Over time, I realized that this distance between my practice and English would always exist. Now, I have come to embrace this and have begun incorporating Chinese characters instead of avoiding them.
AL: Sharing a Taiwanese identity, I understand the ways in which it is inherently political. How has living and working in the US influenced this understanding? Has it been amplified in your transnational experience?
WW: I didn’t fully grasp the impact of upholding a Taiwanese identity until I came to the US. Before, I couldn’t have imagined myself creating work that might be considered “political”—my political awareness developed later in life. It was with distance, both physical and mental, that my perspective shifted, making identity the most defining theme in my life and, naturally, my practice.
Living and working in the US has introduced a different sense of temporality. It has allowed me to reexamine and articulate this history for a different audience while navigating the still complex and often fragile context of global affairs. While I wouldn’t say that the US inherently offers more freedom, given that censorship remains pervasive and impacts many communities, I do feel freer in the sense that I can now better identify through a more interconnected lens.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Wang is currently exhibiting in a two-person show, After / Images, at Black Brick Project until February 22, 2025. Both Maintain Status Quo Indefinitely and Country within Country are on view.
