An Interview With Hsu Tsun-Hsu

In 1987 Taiwan ended its 38-year era of martial law (1949–1987). The following year Hsu Tsun-Hsu joined the photography department of China Times, embarking on a journalistic career that would span over two decades. This Taipei Biennial features a photographic chronicle of images taken by Hsu Tsun-Hsu in his role as a journalist. They stand as microcosmic encapsulations of the turbulent changes in Taiwanese society and its process of democratic progress. As the exhibition drew to a close, curator Freya Chou joined Hsu in looking back at the moments in time that his images captured. 

FC: I remember in the first few meetings, we spent some time discussing which of your works we would select and which years they would cover. And I asked you, “Looking back at your journalistic career that lasted a few decades, which moments were the most interesting or the most memorable?” You answered, the first decade following the lifting of martial law (1987–1998), because everything was chaotic, but it was also a time of hope. This led me to select this period as the time span for your works, because for me, Taiwan today also seems chaotic, and we don’t know which way to go.

HTH: We chose a crucial decade in Taiwanese history. This decade was compelling because it was an aggregation of many different events, both large and small. We did not select a single event, because that would have been too difficult. News events were happening every day. Three key incidents did take place during this decade—the democratic election of the “never-ending National Assembly,” whose members had been in office for over four decades (1990); the discontinuation of Article 100 of the Criminal Code, which criminalized political dissent as sedition (1991); and the first direct presidential election (1996). But a pervasive sense of ludicrousness was in the air throughout the whole period. This had been the case ever since the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) arrived in Taiwan in 1949. Looking back from the present day, Taiwan entered a completely absurd era from that moment. So when I first started pondering how to present this period of history, I was left scratching my head. When I was doing the news, my role was passive. Often I was told to provide pictures for a single specific event. But now, because of this exhibition, 

I have been enpowered to speak. The bar for what satisfies me has been raised, and I hope to have my own agency and not be dominated by any system or boss.

FC: Could you comment on the arrangement of photographs in the installation? This “salon” style of display takes the focus off any one image or one moment in history, and instead presents the viewer with an overall impression of another era. What impression would you like viewers to take away from this display?

HTH: When you started discussing the works with me and gave me the freedom of interpretation, I started considering how I could present the most all-encompassing things, the aspects I just had to get off my chest, the things I had always wanted to express. I almost slept with these pictures for half a year, locking them in my gaze every day, because sometimes you can’t figure out the presentation method that you want. What’s more, these photos had been set aside for over thirty years. They were familiar yet also unfamiliar, because I suddenly wanted to elevate my field of vision and see the big picture, to look back on exactly what it was that I was confronting in my youthful ignorance, as I tried to amass deep thoughts by acting quickly. Then one day I had an epiphany: why not divide them into several chapters and talk about them not from the angle of events, but as the things experienced by little people in big times. So I developed a few categories as extensions of the three political reforms that I just mentioned: the budding of the democratic movement, the appearance of President Lee Teng-hui as an era-defining personage, and the special role that women played in those days. 

The cries of the people unable to breathe the air of freedom who lived through that era of long-term oppression and absurdity when the party controlled the nation, the injustice that pervaded nearly every sphere of life.

FC: What lessons can the rest of the world draw from the era of Taiwan’s history so vividly captured in your photographs? 

HTH: This decade was an important decade not just for Taiwan. In 1989 the whole world was undergoing structural changes. I think that everything local is international in nature, and if you analyze your own story at the deepest level, it is intimately related to the global context. This is why I’ve tried to present these photographs in a jump-cut style with a quasi-textual narrative, rather than using an expository approach. These photos were all discarded by the newspaper’s editorial desk at that time. Back then the Taiwanese news media were mainly dominated by texts, and photos were just tools for ornamentation. That’s why I took these photos from the perspective I did. It had a deep connection to the situation I was in—not just the absurdity of the times, but also the absurdity of my own workplace. 

As soon as I joined the profession, I was marginalized by the system and undervalued. This was because I didn’t have orthodox credentials, and because of the unsavory practices of the workplace in those times. Everyone at the newspaper had to form factions. People had to protect the common interests of their own little clique in order to score the good news stories, and I would definitely not get the chance to cover a major news story. For that reason, I had the spare energy to consider every photograph independently. I didn’t take these pictures at important news scenes. Instead, I thought about them, searched for them, or waited for them myself. This is why they are still thought-provoking when you look at them decades later. Actually, in my media career of more than 30 years, I rarely covered major news stories. Except for a few major events and some protests, I was mostly sent to shoot local community news. Sometimes they’d give me nearly 10 news pieces in one day and send me all over the place. But the next day, not a single photo would appear in print. And sometimes they wouldn’t give me a single assignment, and I was left to fend for myself. So I had to act on my own, analyzing or seeking out stories that called for both text and pictures. Eventually, I was forced to ask for an assignment as a matter of course. I started running stories for the most monotonous, boring team, the Economy section. But as it turned out, not long after that, the stock market crashed, and instantly I had the chance to showcase all my potential.

FC: So these life experiences in which you had to find joy in suffering became a unique visual language.

HTH: I believe that after the dust has settled from some big event, many good photos can be captured if you persevere and keep taking pictures. That’s also the easiest way to reveal the true nature of people in the moment: because they can’t hold back their feelings, and the body language of emotions does not lie. Likewise, those faces that are faking it in front of the camera will also be revealed.

FC: Have you ever changed the way you take pictures because you wanted them to receive greater exposure?

HTH: No, because I realized that even if one of my photos appeared on the front page of the paper, it wouldn’t be my work. It would only be meeting the requirements of the editorial desk. So I amassed my work from those photos that were rejected over and over, which I plucked out of the editorial desk trash basket one by one. But actually, the fact that the news stories I was covering then were all unimportant and I felt no pressure allowed me to take pictures with a free hand. This trained me to go to a news scene and take pictures that I could link together into a story, and it nourished my development. Later, when I left my newspaper job that I’d had for more than 20 years and became an independent photographer for foreign media, like Agence France-Presse and the Financial Times of Britain, that was actually the period when I progressed and grew fastest, because I was completely free from the constraints and control of the system, and I no longer had to use up energy battling it.

FC: Many photographers have tried to define what makes a compelling image. Cartier-Bresson’s “decisive moment” was one of the most famous expressions of what it means to capture the essence of a fleeting scene. How do you know when you’ve created a successful image?

HTH: The elements that form a good photograph are actually set. So as long as you combine these elements, as far as I’m concerned, “any flower petal falling on the surface of the water is a work of art.” There’s no such thing as so-called “important photographs,” only good photographs. Sometimes a “decisive moment” can take place very quickly, and sometimes you have to wait a long time. For me, the point is the depth of thought coming from within you, the capabilities you have fostered, and the richness of your imagination. It’s hard to achieve a positive response from everyone, but you must have something to say.

FC: What was it like for you to prepare this selection of works from images you’ve taken over the decades? Did anything surprise you in this process of reviewing work from your own past?

HTH: The four pictures I ultimately chose to get enlarged and the one with the person picking their nose—I could look at them forever and never get tired. They closely match the mental journey of my media career. They’re bitter and acerbic, but they bring a smile to your face.

FC: What about your mindset? Has it changed?

HTH: More hostile, I would say.

FC: You’re more hostile now or in the past?

HTH: I don’t know if I used to take photos with a hostile mindset in the past; I just used a more sardonic approach. It was only later that I understood that the camera must be hostile if the photo is to be any good. This “hostility” used to be the intent to penetrate the masks and disguises of the powerful and pull them down from their pedestal. But now that they are gone, my hostile intentions have turned into angry disagreement on social issues. I’m committed to opposing the unenlightened in society.

FC: So, you could say that your sardonic attitude in the past was aimed at those who instigated the overall atmosphere of the era, but your sardonic attitude now is aimed at the structural problems of society as a whole. Did this affect how you arranged the layout of your past works?

HTH: I was most satisfied with two series of stories at the beginning: “The 14th Party Congress of the KMT” and “The March for National Assembly Elections.” But I always felt that they lacked a more in-depth dialogue.

FC: I remember that when we were first selecting the photos, I had a hard time giving you an opinion, because I didn’t know the story behind each of the photos. I could only understand them from the people in the images. But perhaps I could represent the vantage point of most of the viewers who did not take part in this period of history. So it was from this kind of dialogue that we started discussing the method of presentation.

HTH: The two big groups of photos we chose at first captured stories that took place on the streets at the time. They run deep in my blood, and they’re an era of history I’m very familiar with. So tangled up within them were many political and social revolutions I personally experienced. What’s more, I had been sidelined and sent to photograph a bunch of ordinary people that weren’t important. So they contained a contrast that was very personal yet also reflected the larger sweep of the whole era.

FC: How do you think your work, which is very specific to Taiwan, relates to the international scope of the exhibition? Do you feel any particular affinity with other pieces on display?

HTH: This series seems to give everyone a down-to-earth feeling, and although the content of the images is very abstract, they exude an overall atmosphere that’s very infectious. This is an effect I hadn’t anticipated at the outset. I think my work has a deep connection with Jumana Manna’s Foragers: We both faced the same threat of a massive invader, were forbidden to speak our native language, and forbidden to forage. This work echoes our history in many ways. Now, we are liberated, but they are still embroiled. 

FC: I’m glad you chose this film as a point of comparison, because when we first thought to place your works together with the Cinema Program, we wanted to express how this chapter of Taiwanese history was entangled with other places around the world. No matter how far away, they all have commonalities and similar emotional experiences. And as you said before, local is international.

My final question is: Many of these photographs were taken in your capacity as a photojournalist and had one function as urgent, immediate reporting. How have these images changed, or how do we look at them differently, after decades have passed? 

HTH: Looking back on my work, I feel I was standing in the position of a spectator. The way I shoot now is more intrusive. Maybe that’s because I played the role of a documentarian back then, and there was a distance between me and each of my subjects. Now my mentality has changed. I’m more direct. In my past role, I was more disconnected. That had a lot to do with my mindset at that time of being suppressed by the system. I don’t want to shoot reportorial-style images. I don’t want to do photojournalism. I just want to enter people’s inner worlds for an instant, and then leave.

Translated by Brent Heinrich