Strange World: Wen-Han Chang

Exhibition is at the Greater Boston Stage Co., 395 Main St, Stoneham, MA 02180.  Open Mon. – Fri., 11-6 and Sat., 1-6, and one hour before each performance. Access the Gallery through the lobby. 

No one can be exempted from the need for sleep. In sleep, we are restored and refreshed while suspended between bodily functions and consciousness. We do not know what was happening when lying asleep. Further, those almost in trance are cut off from the reality. What is the relationship between the actual world and the realm reigned by Hypnos? 

As a photographer, the camera was applied to expend my vision. It record what was going on when I was in deep sleep and visual sensation was closed. The camera lens was set up to focus on the surroundings such as ceilings, walls, and corners of my room. The shutter of camera would take pictures when I was not awake. When my perception was limited and cut off from the usual, the camera started to see, to reveal the world I never saw. 

Every day and every night several kinds of light, coming from street-lamps, headlights and so on, went through the windows and reflected around. Rays of light implied that something travelled through time and space. The light caught by my camera left a stroke, a layer on the film. In other words, something or someone passed by, but their traces entered my room, and were record by my camera. 

Layers of light, from the world we are familiar with accumulated on the film, and thus developed an unfamiliar world. In a parallel, we are strangers to the world during our sleep. By the use of camera, the time of sleep could be collected as remains of light and colors. As a result, a strange, yet fantastic, world to all would be created and become visible .

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.