Film Installation: Chen Chieh-jen's 'Condensation' Clamors with Silence

Located on Manhattan's well-groomed Park Avenue, the Asia Society describes itself as "the leading global and pan-Asian organization working to strengthen relationships and promote understanding." In addition to cultural exchanges, performing arts and networking events, the Society houses works by prestigious artists from across Asia. This week Melanie McGanney had the opportunity to visit the Society and view five film installations by Taiwan's leading artist, Chen Chieh-jen. Chen's work traces the working conditions in his home country with quiet sensitivity. He forces his viewer to confront the predicament of a people who will spend the entirety of their lives embroiled in grueling physical labor, people who will never catch a glimpse of Park Avenue.

How can the socially marginalized access the voice they need to affect change in their personal conditions as well as the world around them? A tempting approach to confront this epic dilemma is to send messages through mediums that paradoxically, do not require sound. This pointed use of silence is exactly what Chen Chieh-jen embraces throughout his five film installations.

In his signature piece, "Factory," Chen's camera takes the audience through back-breaking 12-hour shifts, wades through seven-day work weeks, and pans the forlorn faces of hundreds of women hunched over sewing machines—all in complete silence. We sit on a stiff bench in the pitch black, air-conditioned gallery space in one of the wealthiest cities in the world, and feel utter helplessness.

Chen depicts how globalization has worsened the already poor conditions for the workers whose lives he examines. When cheaper labor could be found elsewhere, this particular factory closed, stripping the women of their only means of income, without severance, without pension.

Years later, Chen rounded up the markedly aged laborers and convinced them to return to the now-abandoned factory where they once toiled. Remarkably, Chen found the women to be willing participants in the project. Chen notes that "at the time of the filming, the factory's assets were still the property of the owner. We surreptitiously filmed without the employer's consent."

The thirty minute film opens with the camera focused on two former workers, standing on tables in the cobweb ridden, junk-filled warehouse, holding up a single garment, presumably produced in the factory. Chen's camera zooms in on the women so slowly that we barely feel the movement. Ultimately, only the folds of the jacket remain on the screen. The dark fabric lining gives way to historical footage of the factory in its heyday.

Although we can imagine that the factory once bustled with noise, both human and mechanical, the silence of the film pervades, accentuating the painstaking work. One unforgettable shot—the camera lingers on a worker's hand that desperately attempts to thread a piece of string through the eye of a needle on a sewing machine. The woman's hand trembles ever so slightly, repeatedly missing its mark. The silence exacerbates our frustration; why can't we just reach out and steady her hand for her? But the camera is unremitting, forcing us to view the struggle for what feels like an eternity.

Chen has written, "images are transmitted for a reason. It is not just a question of how to make images, but a question of what message to convey and to whom to convey it." Given this statement, we must consider who Chen tries to reach with this work. In part, Chen directs the film toward the individuals in wealthier countries who are complicit in these brutal conditions because of the benefits they receive from globalization. But the film lacks a moral didacticism that one might expect. Chen also blames his native Taiwan, which he describes as "swallowed up in the illusion of nationalism and consumerist desire." America can't solve these atrocities alone; nor can Taiwan. The solution lies in global awareness and a willingness to act.

The subject matter of the other four films includes an additional examination of labor exploitation (Bade Area), the relationship between Taiwan and China (On Going), a draconian penal practice that left victims "bound, dismembered, force-fed opium" in front of a gawking crowd (Lingchi), and the 1995 Liverpool dockworkers' strike, (The Route).

The exhibition runs from June 19—August 5 at New York's Asia Society
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-Melanie McGanney


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