Subtropical Signals: Contemporary Image-Making from Taiwan
DATE
19 JUN to 26 JUL 2026
VENUE
Shop–House by DECK
4 Lorong 24 Geylang, 398616
FEATURING
Joanna Fu (Curator)
Annie Hsiao-Ching Wang, Chia Huang, Chia-Shin Yang, Ching-Yi Hsueh, Chou Fang Yu, Chuang John, Hi-Quality, Hsu Che-Jui, Hou-Wen Su, Li Wei-Chen, Liya Lee, Lin Wei-Lun, Ma Li-Chun, Peng Yi-Hang, Shen Chao-Liang, Teng Po-Jen, Tsai Ting Bang, Wu MeiChi, Wong Wang Chuen, Yao Jui-Chung, Yehlin Lee
About
Subtropical Signals brings together twenty-one artists from Taiwan whose works explore history, memory, migration, belief, technology, identity, embodiment, intimacy, and everyday life. Working across photography, video, archives, photobooks, installation, and AI-generated imagery, the exhibition examines how images emerge from overlapping realities.
In Taiwan, the world’s most advanced semiconductor industry exists alongside religious pilgrimage traditions that have continued across generations. High-tech infrastructures, local belief systems, global networks, and historical legacies coexist within the same society. Long shaped by maritime routes, colonial histories, migration, and transnational movement, Taiwan is a place where different histories, cultures, and ways of seeing continue to converge.
Drawing from colonial histories, migration, personal narratives, intimate relationships, women’s experiences, local landscapes, religious practices, and everyday encounters, the participating artists reveal how broader forces become visible through individual lives. Rather than presenting a singular image of Taiwan, Subtropical Signals offers multiple perspectives on the present, tracing the relationships between personal experience and history, memory and transformation, and local realities and global flows.
In Taiwan, the world’s most advanced semiconductor industry exists alongside religious pilgrimage traditions that have continued across generations. High-tech infrastructures, local belief systems, global networks, and historical legacies coexist within the same society. Long shaped by maritime routes, colonial histories, migration, and transnational movement, Taiwan is a place where different histories, cultures, and ways of seeing continue to converge.
Drawing from colonial histories, migration, personal narratives, intimate relationships, women’s experiences, local landscapes, religious practices, and everyday encounters, the participating artists reveal how broader forces become visible through individual lives. Rather than presenting a singular image of Taiwan, Subtropical Signals offers multiple perspectives on the present, tracing the relationships between personal experience and history, memory and transformation, and local realities and global flows.
Opening Hours
Thursday to Sunday: 1pm – 7pm (last admission at 6pm)
Closed on Public Holidays
Admission is Free.
Browse Gallery
←
→
-
Long Live, 2011 © Yao Jui-Chung
-
From Something Vibrant, 2024. © Houwen Su
-
Confusing Reality with Dreams, 2025. © Wu MeiChi
-
The Mother as a Creator No. 9 - At the Same Height, 2014 © Annie Hsiao-Ching Wang
-
Mother, 2026. © Tsai Ting-Bang
-
Shimmering Lights in the Dark - Historical Sites from the Authoritarian Period - Ankang Reception House & Xindian Military Prison, 2020 © Shen Chao-Liang
Featuring
Joanna Fu
Curator
Joanna Fu is a curator, visual researcher, and writer based in Taipei and Shanghai. Author of four books on photography and visual culture, her work explores how history, technology, migration, belief, and local culture shape contemporary image-making. She was a nominating curator for the 2023 Jimei × Arles Discovery Award, where her nominated artist received the award, and is a mentor for the Three Shadows Photography Art Centre and CHANEL curatorial programme. She also serves as an Asia Nominator for the 2025 Thinking Sustainability Prize of the Louis Roederer Foundation.
Annie Hsiao-Ching Wang
Artist
Annie Hsiao-Ching Wang (b. 1972, Taipei, Taiwan) received her PhD from the University of Brighton, UK and is an assistant professor at National Dong Hwa University. Wang is internationally renowned. The New Yorker praised her for “reframing motherhood as a grand creative endeavor,” while the BBC noted that her works “change and transcend the cliché of motherhood.” She has been invited to exhibit at Festival Images Vevey, AIPAD New York, and Paris Photo… Her works are part of the collections at Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Getty, SFMOMA, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and V&A, among others.
Chia Huang
Artist
Chia Huang is a Taiwanese artist working across photography, collage, drawing, and video. Her practice explores migration, displacement, identity, and belonging through collaborative and participatory image-making. Drawing on personal and collective narratives, she examines how memory, movement, and cultural exchange shape contemporary life. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Rencontres d’Arles, Palais de Tokyo, LUMA Arles, and MoCA Taipei. In 2026, she was selected for the French national photographic commission Regards du Grand Paris.
Chia-Shin Yang
Artist
Chia-Shin Yang is a Taipei-based artist working across photography, installation, and artist books. Her practice explores bodily experience, trauma, family history, and forms of public intimacy, often drawing from personal archives and lived experience.
Through images, objects, and spatial arrangements, Yang examines how memory is constructed, transmitted, and shared between individual and collective narratives. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at Jimei x Arles International Photo Festival, where she received the Curatorial Award and Photobook Exhibition Jury Prize.
Through images, objects, and spatial arrangements, Yang examines how memory is constructed, transmitted, and shared between individual and collective narratives. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at Jimei x Arles International Photo Festival, where she received the Curatorial Award and Photobook Exhibition Jury Prize.
Ching-Yi Hsueh
Artist
Ching-Yi Hsueh is a Taiwanese artist working with photography, photobooks, and artist books. His work explores the intersections of religious culture, pilgrimage, vernacular belief systems, and contemporary image culture.
Through photographic projects and book-based works, Hsueh examines how rituals, journeys, and spiritual landscapes continue to shape cultural memory and everyday life. His recent project Roaming Gods, Divine Roaming focuses on the visual and emotional dimensions of movement, devotion, and place.
Through photographic projects and book-based works, Hsueh examines how rituals, journeys, and spiritual landscapes continue to shape cultural memory and everyday life. His recent project Roaming Gods, Divine Roaming focuses on the visual and emotional dimensions of movement, devotion, and place.
Chou Fang Yu
Artist
Chou Fang Yu is a Taiwanese image-based artist working primarily with photography, drawing, and self-portraiture. Rooted in personal experience, her practice explores female subjectivity, intimacy, family relationships, and everyday life.
Through staged images and performative gestures, Chou examines the emotional dimensions of memory, identity, and human connection. Moving between observation and imagination, her work reveals the ambiguities, tensions, and quiet encounters embedded within ordinary life.
Through staged images and performative gestures, Chou examines the emotional dimensions of memory, identity, and human connection. Moving between observation and imagination, her work reveals the ambiguities, tensions, and quiet encounters embedded within ordinary life.
Chuang John
Artist
Chuang John is an artist whose practice explores the intersections of technology, desire, and belief in contemporary society. Working primarily with moving images, he uses the smartphone as both subject and tool, examining how digital media shapes perception, ritual, intimacy, and everyday life.
His work investigates the ways technological systems increasingly overlap with cultural and spiritual frameworks, revealing new forms of experience and meaning-making in the digital age. Drawing from online culture, vernacular religion, and contemporary visual environments, he examines how belief continues to evolve within networked societies.
His work investigates the ways technological systems increasingly overlap with cultural and spiritual frameworks, revealing new forms of experience and meaning-making in the digital age. Drawing from online culture, vernacular religion, and contemporary visual environments, he examines how belief continues to evolve within networked societies.
Hi-Quality
Artist
Hi-Quality is an art collective founded by Min Shih-Han and Chen Chih-Yang in 2023. Their practice examines the coexistence of digital technologies and local belief systems in contemporary Taiwan.
Through installations, moving image, digital simulation, and interactive media, they investigate how rituals, myths, and collective memories continue to circulate within digitally mediated realities. Drawing inspiration from temple culture, abandoned sites, and urban ruins, their work explores the shifting boundaries between physical space, virtual experience, and cultural imagination.
Through installations, moving image, digital simulation, and interactive media, they investigate how rituals, myths, and collective memories continue to circulate within digitally mediated realities. Drawing inspiration from temple culture, abandoned sites, and urban ruins, their work explores the shifting boundaries between physical space, virtual experience, and cultural imagination.
Hsu Che-jui
Artist
Hsu Che-jui (b. 2003, Taiwan) is an artist working across photography, performance, and AI-generated imagery. His practice draws from martial arts, tarot, popular culture, and digital technologies to explore questions of identity, belief, and image production in contemporary society.
Combining large-format photography, performance, and artificial intelligence, HSU examines how personal and collective identities are continuously constructed, transformed, and circulated through visual culture.
Combining large-format photography, performance, and artificial intelligence, HSU examines how personal and collective identities are continuously constructed, transformed, and circulated through visual culture.
Hou-Wen Su
Artist
Houwen Su is a Taiwan-based artist working across photography, moving image, installation, and photobooks. His practice explores the relationship between personal memory, social history, and contemporary Taiwanese social landscapes.
Through long-term research and image-making, Su investigates overlooked communities, marginal territories, and the histories embedded within particular places. Moving between documentary and fiction, his work examines photography as both a record of reality and a medium for reimagining it.
His photobook Something Vibrant was published by AKAAKA (Japan) in 2024.
Through long-term research and image-making, Su investigates overlooked communities, marginal territories, and the histories embedded within particular places. Moving between documentary and fiction, his work examines photography as both a record of reality and a medium for reimagining it.
His photobook Something Vibrant was published by AKAAKA (Japan) in 2024.
Li Wei-Chen
Artist
Wei-Chen Li (b. 1989) is a Taiwanese artist and photographer based in central Taiwan. Working across photography, archival research, and image-based practices, he explores the relationships between memory, place, and family history.
Recent works include the Night Stroll series and Tieshanzhi, a three-volume project combining photography and writing. His work Blurred Boundaries was included in Never the Same River at the 17th Shanghai International Photography Art Exhibition (2024), and has also been exhibited at the 6th Shenzhen International Photography Exhibition (2022–2023).
Recent works include the Night Stroll series and Tieshanzhi, a three-volume project combining photography and writing. His work Blurred Boundaries was included in Never the Same River at the 17th Shanghai International Photography Art Exhibition (2024), and has also been exhibited at the 6th Shenzhen International Photography Exhibition (2022–2023).
Liya Lee
Artist
Liya Lee is a Taiwanese artist working with photography, artist books, and publishing-based practices. Her work explores the relationship between image, materiality, memory, and reading, treating the book as a space where images are arranged, handled, and reimagined. Through photographic projects, handmade publications, and experimental book forms, she investigates how images become physical and intimate experiences. In 2022, she founded Shū Hé Zhì Independent Publishing, a platform dedicated to artist books, experimental publishing, and photographic narratives.
Lin Wei-Lun
Artist
Lin Wei-Lun is a Taiwanese artist working with photography and research-based practices. Through long-term projects, his work explores the relationships between landscape, history, geopolitics, and environmental change in contemporary Taiwan.
Engaging with subjects ranging from Indigenous communities to ecological transformation, Lin examines how social and political forces become embedded within places and everyday life. His work has been exhibited internationally, including at The PhotoBook Museum, Landskrona Foto Festival, Taiwan International Photography Festival, and Belfast Photo Festival.
Engaging with subjects ranging from Indigenous communities to ecological transformation, Lin examines how social and political forces become embedded within places and everyday life. His work has been exhibited internationally, including at The PhotoBook Museum, Landskrona Foto Festival, Taiwan International Photography Festival, and Belfast Photo Festival.
Ma Li-Chun
Artist
Ma Li-Chun is a Taiwanese artist working with photography and moving image. Drawing from a background in journalism, his practice explores how social change, collective memory, and shifting urban landscapes shape contemporary life in Taiwan.
Through photography and documentary filmmaking, Ma investigates the relationship between history, place, and lived experience. His acclaimed series Landscape Shade received awards at the National Art Exhibition (2014) and the 11th TAGBOAT AWARD (2016), and was acquired by the Art Bank of the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts. His work has been exhibited across Asia and Europe.
Through photography and documentary filmmaking, Ma investigates the relationship between history, place, and lived experience. His acclaimed series Landscape Shade received awards at the National Art Exhibition (2014) and the 11th TAGBOAT AWARD (2016), and was acquired by the Art Bank of the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts. His work has been exhibited across Asia and Europe.
Peng Yi-Hang
Artist
Peng Yi-Hang (b.1992) Born in Taiwan, He is a conceptual photography artist whose work focuses on Taiwan’s vernacular visual culture and folk beliefs surrounding ghosts and deities. Fascinated by invisible and intangible forces, he explores the nature of images and photographic media to investigate the relationship between reality and belief.
Shen Chao-Liang
Artist
Shen Chao-Liang (b. 1968, Tainan, Taiwan) is a photographer, educator, and curator. Alongside his photographic practice, he has worked extensively in photojournalism, teaching, research, criticism, and international exchange. He has held positions at the Liberty Times, National Taiwan University of Arts, Taipei National University of the Arts, and the National Culture and Arts Foundation, Taiwan, and has frequently curated exhibitions and led workshops. He is currently Professor in the Department of Photography and VR Design at Huafan University.
Teng Po-Jen
Artist
Teng Po-Jen is a Taiwanese artist working with photography, photobooks, and narrative-based image practices. His work explores the intersections of family memory, personal history, and everyday experience.
Combining documentary observation with constructed and collage-based imagery, he examines how photographs shape relationships between memory, absence, and belonging. He is the author of the photobooks I Also Miss Home and Farewell to the Fox.
Combining documentary observation with constructed and collage-based imagery, he examines how photographs shape relationships between memory, absence, and belonging. He is the author of the photobooks I Also Miss Home and Farewell to the Fox.
Tsai Ting-Bang
Artist
Tsai Ting-Bang (b. 1999, Taiwan) is a Taiwanese artist working with photography and photobooks. Drawing from his Taiwanese and Vietnamese heritage, his work explores family history, identity, migration, and belonging through long-term photographic projects and book-based practices. His photobook Born from the Same Root received the First PhotoBook Award at the Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards and the Singapore Photo Dummy Book Award in 2024. In 2025, his project Hui Shui Dang Dang: Aunt Jin Yun, the Beautiful One received the Hasselblad Foundation Photo Book Grant.
Wu MeiChi
Artist
Wu MeiChi (b. 1989, Tainan, Taiwan) is a Taipei-based artist working primarily with photography. Through constructed still-life scenes, light, objects, and spatial interventions, she explores the processes through which images are produced, mediated, and perceived.
Her practice extends across photography, collage, and installation, examining the shifting relationships between objects, images, and space. Recent exhibitions include Huis Marseille, Amsterdam; Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts; Bandung Photo Biennale; and Jimei x Arles International Photo Festival.
Her practice extends across photography, collage, and installation, examining the shifting relationships between objects, images, and space. Recent exhibitions include Huis Marseille, Amsterdam; Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts; Bandung Photo Biennale; and Jimei x Arles International Photo Festival.
Wong Wang Chuen
Artist
Wong Wang Chuen (b. 1986) is a Hong Kong-born artist based in Taiwan, working primarily with analogue photography. Through long-term engagement with local communities and everyday life, his practice explores place, memory, ritual, and belonging.
Drawing from his experience of living in Taiwan for more than a decade, Wong examines how relationships between people and place are gradually formed through shared histories, cultural practices, and daily encounters. His projects include The Water is Wide and Untitled—Chuen.
Drawing from his experience of living in Taiwan for more than a decade, Wong examines how relationships between people and place are gradually formed through shared histories, cultural practices, and daily encounters. His projects include The Water is Wide and Untitled—Chuen.
Yao Jui-Chung
Artist
Yao Jui-Chung is a Taiwanese artist whose work explores how power, belief, and desire become embedded in landscapes, architecture, and public life. Working across photography, installation, performance, and long-term research projects, he has spent more than three decades investigating military sites, abandoned developments, monuments, religious practices, and other spaces shaped by collective memory. Through a practice that combines field research, visual inquiry, and cultural critique, Yao traces the material remains of political ideologies and social transformation, revealing how histories of power continue to shape contemporary experience.
Yehlin Lee
Artist
Yehlin Lee (b. 1976, Taipei, Taiwan) is a Taiwanese artist working across sound art and photography. Since 2011, his photographic practice has been shaped by listening, meditation, and yoga, treating image-making as an intuitive and embodied process.
Moving between perception and introspection, Lee creates photographs that emerge from heightened states of awareness and attention. His work explores the relationship between consciousness, memory, and the unseen dimensions of experience. His photobooks include Raw Soul and Undercurrent (2026), both published by AKAAKA (Kyoto).
Moving between perception and introspection, Lee creates photographs that emerge from heightened states of awareness and attention. His work explores the relationship between consciousness, memory, and the unseen dimensions of experience. His photobooks include Raw Soul and Undercurrent (2026), both published by AKAAKA (Kyoto).
