Ching-Hui Chou became interested in photography in 1988, and shortly thereafter started to work as a media professional. He was the recipient of a silver medal in reportorial photography at the ROC International Photographic Art Exhibition. Chou aspires to tell stories with his camera. “I want to make images relate a narrative, just like words.”

Zoo is a space full of imagination and conflict. It symbolizes a time of joy (for visitors), yet it also symbolizes a time of confinement and segregation (for animals). It symbolizes the convenience and marvels of modern life (a collection of rare animals from all over the world), and it also suggests a hint of the apocalyptic salvation of Noah’s Ark (protecting species on the verge of extinction). Cages in zoos are used as an allusion to modern people’s lives in cages. Through an extremely absurd, misplaced, and strange arrangement of time and space, a peculiar experience is created for the viewer. The project features nine works, manifesting the intangible frames in society that guide our every step, and causing the viewer to reexamine their situation, to become conscious of their constraints, and to ruminate on the possibilities of struggling free.

Chou’s works have been exhibited at Taipei Fine Arts Museum (1995); the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography (1996); the Pingyao International Photography Festival, Pingyao, China (2002); the Guangdong Museum of Art (2003); the Shanghai Art Museum (2003); the Guangzhou Photo Biennial (2008, 2009); and the Taiwan Biennial (2008). Chou’s Wild Aspirations – The Yellow Sheep River Project, a picture book series composed of computer images of children of the Yellow Sheep River Area, won the Red Dot Design Award in 2010 and the iF Communication Design Award 2011.