Chia-Yun Wu

Nunu Fine Art New York is pleased to present Elsewhere, the first exhibition of Taiwanese artist Chia Yun Wu with the gallery and the next installment in the Project Space: Asian Voices Program. Featuring a new series of photographic and installation works, Elsewhere will explore the artist’s sense of self and notions of homeland, family, and cultural identity as a citizen of a nation still awaiting recognition.

Born in Taiwan, Chia-Yun Wu inherited a cultural lineage defined by constant flux. For centuries, Taiwan’s population lived under colonialist rule—by dynastic China, imperial Japan, and European powers alike. Vestiges of this history are present today in the lack of recognition for the island’s sovereignty by foreign governments and the constant threats of invasion from mainland China, factors that further complicate ideas of homeland and cultural identity for its citizens. Through an exploration of personal and familial history, Wu discovered that her own experiences were intertwined with the complex legacy of her birthplace, and questions of nationhood and belonging subsequently became paramount to her life and work.

A filmmaker as well as a visual artist, Wu leverages aesthetic strategies common in cinema to her photography and installation work. Akin to a director building a mis-en-scène, the artist splices and reconfigures family snapshots and shots of landscapes, layering and stacking photos from her archive with images she captured herself to create coherent, affective compositions. She incorporates short lines of text— vague words, phrases, or open-ended questions — mimicking inquisitive, yet melancholy, subtitles and prompting the viewer to contemplate the precariousness of a selfhood shaped by familial ties and historical context. In Elsewhere, a family photograph of a group gathered in a living room is intentionally blurred, the subjects obscured both by black-and-white grain and by a striking overlayed image of a watery cave, evoking Taiwan’s perpetual political and cultural isolation.

Wu’s work has been described as a direct and anguished cry against the deprivation of recognition. An exploration of the country of her birth after years spent abroad in Europe and the United States, Elsewhere allows the artist to address her relationship to cultural identity and its ties to selfhood through the lens of the diaspora. Describing Taiwan as a lonely island surrounded by “waves and tears,” Wu employs the sparse narratives implied by landscape photography and pairs them with the intimacy of snapshots to retell herstory of belonging, anchoring herself within the broader context of a culture yearning for self-determination.

Chia-Yun Wu is a Taiwanese artist and filmmaker based in New York City. Her work addresses concepts of self and belonging from her position living in the diaspora. From video to mixed-media installation and conceptual photography, she employs strategies used in cinema to experiment with traditional meaning and form. Wu incorporates printmaking, drawing, and image-transfer techniques into her photographs, creating layered compositions that reflect a nomadic state of identity in the context of family, homeland, and the world