Chen Chieh-jen

Chen Chieh-jen
Taiwan, China


Born in 1960 in Taoyuan, Taiwan, Chen Chieh-jen currently lives and works in Taipei, Taiwan. Since 1996, he has collaborated with unemployed laborers, day workers, migrant workers, foreign spouses, unemployed youth and social activists. Starting in 2010, Chen began actively focusing on the fact that many people around the world have been reduced to working temporary jobs due to the pervasive control technology of the current neoliberal, post-Internet age. Chen refers to this near universal plight caused by automation as “global imprisonment” or “at-home exile.” Employing the Buddhist methods of transforming desire with desire and creating appearances to counteract appearances, he considers how this pervasive control technology can be qualitatively changed.

 

A Song

Digital images, black & white, silent, single channel

3’15”, continuous loop

2017

 

When creating A Field of Non-Field, I was hoping to find a contemporary love song to play at the end of the video, but didn’t find anything appropriate.

During a dress rehearsal, the women workers kept repeating, “Nameless, what can we do? What can we do? Nameless.”, which is a line they came up with in a previous discussion. Hearing this, former Hualon Corporation employee Chen Yueh-chiao started to think about the women factory workers’ long and bitter protests against the shareholders of the company and burst into tears. Huang Chiu-hsiang, who had long been involved in labor movements, and some other women workers went over to console her. They started singing the Hakka folk song A Floral Scarf.

I don’t understand the Hakka language, but was able to make out the refrain, “The scarf tells of our never ending love.” They sang this in rounds, which reminded me of a mandala. In an era when individual feelings are easily manipulated and put to use, their singing still fused together lived experience and voices to create what I call a “bodily song.” Finally, I decided to use their singing at the end of the video.

 

A Song

Digital images, black & white, silent, single channel

3’15”, continuous loop

2017

 

When creating A Field of Non-Field, I was hoping to find a contemporary love song to play at the end of the video, but didn’t find anything appropriate.

During a dress rehearsal, the women workers kept repeating, “Nameless, what can we do? What can we do? Nameless.”, which is a line they came up with in a previous discussion. Hearing this, former Hualon Corporation employee Chen Yueh-chiao started to think about the women factory workers’ long and bitter protests against the shareholders of the company and burst into tears. Huang Chiu-hsiang, who had long been involved in labor movements, and some other women workers went over to console her. They started singing the Hakka folk song A Floral Scarf.

I don’t understand the Hakka language, but was able to make out the refrain, “The scarf tells of our never ending love.” They sang this in rounds, which reminded me of a mandala. In an era when individual feelings are easily manipulated and put to use, their singing still fused together lived experience and voices to create what I call a “bodily song.” Finally, I decided to use their singing at the end of the video.

 

A Song

Digital images, black & white, silent, single channel

3’15”, continuous loop

2017

 

When creating A Field of Non-Field, I was hoping to find a contemporary love song to play at the end of the video, but didn’t find anything appropriate.

During a dress rehearsal, the women workers kept repeating, “Nameless, what can we do? What can we do? Nameless.”, which is a line they came up with in a previous discussion. Hearing this, former Hualon Corporation employee Chen Yueh-chiao started to think about the women factory workers’ long and bitter protests against the shareholders of the company and burst into tears. Huang Chiu-hsiang, who had long been involved in labor movements, and some other women workers went over to console her. They started singing the Hakka folk song A Floral Scarf.

I don’t understand the Hakka language, but was able to make out the refrain, “The scarf tells of our never ending love.” They sang this in rounds, which reminded me of a mandala. In an era when individual feelings are easily manipulated and put to use, their singing still fused together lived experience and voices to create what I call a “bodily song.” Finally, I decided to use their singing at the end of the video.

 

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