Ongoing project, “…and the rain still, still there…”, What posture must one adopt to approach the truth, What does a drowning person clutching water plants look like?
A Comment for Perfect Photo produce
“When discussing the corruption of the image, Régis Debray did not recognise that, as images are reproduced, their nature does not simply fail or reorganise through iteration. Instead, through a sustained process of institutionalisation, they gradually degenerate—becoming defined by politicised terminologies that shape both discourse and perception. Eventually, under the guise of being “indefinable” and “beyond challenge”, such images are endlessly reproduced as perfect, regulated forms: an aesthetic of obedience that serves the maintenance of order—a kind of blindness, confusion, and false tolerance masquerading as openness. Yet images that neglect their own material and technical conditions, relying solely on predetermined narratives and moral obligations, can scarcely sustain themselves. They depend on the conclusive rhetoric authorised by institutional systems, constructing imagination detached from the material reality of the image itself.
Even so, the meanings and conditions that an image can articulate remain fundamentally autonomous. The image does not collapse into a set of interchangeable surfaces, nor is it supplanted by the deceptive imaginaries generated through ideological control. The formation of an image is inseparable from its material structure, technical conditions, and mediatic apparatus. It is only on this level that representation regains its validity—its ability to represent at all. The works in this exhibition operate within such a framework: by returning to the sites of image production—through optical, chemical, digital, and mechanical processes such as etching and development—they reconsider how the image might resist flattening, and how it may reconstruct experience through more concrete, multidimensional modes of representation. “
Artists: Yiding Chen @yidinger_c , Gina Cross @gina_cross_artist , Matilda Yueyang Peng @matilda_n9 , Kayla Jie Wang @kayla_jiee , Dashen Zhang @dashshenz
Curators: AUTOMATIC PROCESS, Shengyu Chen @bugaoming
In collaboration with Automatic Process, this exhibition revisits the material and technical conditions of the image — questioning how representation can sustain itself beyond institutional perfection. Through optical, chemical, digital, and mechanical experiments, the works explore the image as a living, self-constructing event rather than a surface of replication.
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Opening: 25 October, 2025
Venue: @garageap_chengdu GAP, 14-9-5, Shuanglin Henglu Rd. M, Chenghua District, Chengdu
Duration: 25 October - 16 November 2025 (open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10:00 to 18:00)
Artist: Yiding Chen @yidinger_c , Matilda Yueyang Peng @matilda_n9 , Kayla Jie Wang @kayla_jiee , Dashen Zhang @dashshenz , Gina Cross @ginacross_
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Curated by Shengyu Chen & Automatic Process
#exhibition #chengdu #contemporaryart #photographer #imagemaking #materiality
Exhibition:
Applying Eye Medicine
Artist:
Shengyu Chen
Exhibition Period:
2025.07.27-8.17 (Close on Mondays)
Opening time:
July 26, 2025 at 4:00 PM.
Exhibition Venue:
No. 63, Section 2, Shenxianshu South Road, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
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The negatives in this project were found by chance at a flea market, tucked inside a yellowing pharmacy bag—like unclaimed prescriptions scattered through time. Their photographers and the moments they captured had long faded, but the way they reached me felt too personal to ignore. If a photograph is a kind of remedy, what gives us the right to peer into someone else’s wound?
Looking at another’s image always involves a degree of intrusion. To soften this, I chose to “medicate the eye.” I scorched the negatives with fire, blistering the emulsion and stripping away clarity. Then, I sealed them in wax, inspired by the texture of traditional herbal pills. This layer blocked oxygen—and with it, the possibility of direct seeing. What remains are images that unfold slowly, like delayed medicine: faint, obscured, and uncertain.
They resist full exposure. The charred edges and waxen surfaces hold viewers at a distance, suspending the image between presence and absence. These photographs no longer tell specific stories, but act as material metaphors for memory, erasure, and return. Their value lies not in what they reveal, but in how we choose to witness them—with care, distance, and respect.
