The interweaving of life and space
Not only has Yeh Wei-li recorded places with his camera, but he has also had to integrate himself into his surroundings, devoting much time to the repeated adjustment, arrangement and development of particular spaces. This is also what differentiates him from documentary photographers. Namely, aside from the perfection of the images themselves, physical participation is a vital element of his work, and these physical processes are featured in his documentary film Illuminated Presence. Importantly, far from simply aiming to represent the external world, he repeatedly explores the same spaces from various new perspectives over long periods of time, opening up an internal timeframe within a space that has long been intermeshed with himself.
Yeh Wei-li’s creative method also resonates with the spirit of Yeh Shih-chiang’s work. He moved to Shuinandong for a long stay in order to investigate and absorb his predecessor’s former residence. Imagining how the older artist lived in that space, Yeh re-enacts his quotidian routines, such as weeding, making fires, repairing the pond, and listening to the wind rustling the bamboos in the run-down garden. At the same time, he wonders what will happen if he, like his predecessor, is to live there for six years. The lives of two artists from different eras have thus become intertwined through the “daily rituals” embedded in that particular environment.
The World of Da-Tong in Cologne #2 2012 Color photograph, acrylic face mount 130 x 107 cm