Michelle Chan Wan Chee is a relational artist who works primarily in photography. She uses the camera and manipulated images to generate connections and conversations with people. Her works often touch upon the notion of home, sense of belonging, human connections and bonding, and familial relationships. More specifically, they reflect the inherited familial beliefs that inform our daily gestures and rituals, and explore the Chinese beliefs and philosophies that have become recurrent over centuries.
Her work has been exhibited in Hong Kong and internationally, including the Angkor Photo Festival 2019, Singapore International Photography Festival 2020 and Objectifs’ Women in Film and Photography 2021 (Singapore). She was awarded laureate at the International Women Photography Award in 2019 for her series, Crab Seniors. In 2021, she received the Prince Claus Seed Awards for her ongoing project, Kaufu. The work was presented in a solo exhibition, as part of the Hong Kong International Photo Festival 2022, and in the M+ Talks: "Miniature as Method? Vanishing Acts in Trans-scalar Hong Kong".
Alongside her individual artistic practice, she founded Phoboko, a platform for bringing people together through photobooks and the topics they contain. Through regular meetings, photobooks are used as “social objects” for dialogues and knowledge exchange between participants. Recently, she also initiated 1:1 studio, an independent experimental space dedicated for 1 photobook, 1 exhibition project. The project is about unfolding a photobook into a three-dimensional space and vice versa encapsulating what’s displayed in the space to that very photobook, realising her vision of “dedicating a 100ft² space to creating the world of one photobook”.
Furthermore, she writes critical essays in #somethingtotalkabout, on how to look mindfully at our surroundings and think critically about the ideas embedded and their related issues. These essays touch upon photography's relationship with them, while introducing photobooks of relevant themes. She also teaches photography to children, teens, and adults, using photozines as a medium to narrate individual stories, build relationships with others and connect to their communities.
陳韻芝是一位以攝影為首要創作媒介的關係藝術家。她擅長以相機與影像與人建立連繫、牽絆與對話。她的作品往往觸及家庭、歸屬感、人際關係和家族關係等概念。更具體而言，她的作品反映了代代承傳的家族信仰，和它們如何影響我們日常的行動、姿態與儀式，而從中，她能探索出數個世紀以來一直盤踞和植根的中國信仰與哲學，如何得以反復出現並受以承傳、運傳開來。
她的作品曾在香港和國際間展出，包括2019年吳哥攝影節、2020年新加坡國際攝影節，和2021年新加坡Objectifs的女性電影和攝影展。她憑藉《蟹伯樂園》系列，在2019年國際女性攝影獎中獲得獎項殊榮。2021年，她憑藉正在進行中的企劃《舅父》，獲得Prince Claus Seed Awards，而這一作品亦在2022年香港國際攝影節的個展以及M+講座「取法微型作品？從跨尺度世界尋找消失的香港」中展出。
除了她的個人藝術實踐以外，她還創立了《閾限谷》，這一個通過攝影書及其所蘊含的各類主題以將人們匯聚、交流的平台。透過定期舉辦的攝影交流聚會，攝影書被用作參與者之間對話和知識交流的「社交」媒介，充盈各人的知識流通與交流。最近，她也發起了 《1:1 工作室》，一個為「一書一展覽」企劃而設立的獨立實驗空間。這是一個將一本攝影書展開成三維空間，並將空間中展示的內容扣連至該本攝影書，以實踐「100呎的空間造就一本攝影書的世界」這理念的實驗企劃。
此外，她在《#somethingtotalkabout》中撰寫批判性文章，探討如何用心觀察周圍環境並批判性地思考其所蘊含的思想及相應的議題。這些文章涉及探討攝影與它們的關係，同時介紹相關題材的攝影書。她也向兒童、青少年和成人教授攝影，以攝影誌作媒介講述個人故事，與他人建立關係並與其社群建立聯繫。
translated by Clementine Cheung Hei Man
