After New Wave Photography Award－Emerging Photographers in Taiwan

The New Wave Photography Award, launched in 2024, was established to recognize rising photographers and support local emerging creators in Taiwan. Following three rounds of judgment and review by five professional curators from home and abroad, 15 sets of works were selected from among 398 submissions. From the submission guidelines to the evaluation criteria, the award has been designed to be more open, equitable, and globally-minded, with the organizer’s core belief in democratizing art, rather than veering toward populism or elitism. At the heart of this vision is an unwavering belief that “art originates from human beings’ freedom of mentality and thought” and “supporting the creation of photography in Taiwan enriches the Taiwanese spirit and thinking.”

Through the fifteen award-winning works in this edition, we can see how creators tell stories beyond images and even stories behind stories via their individual visual languages, from explorations of the void of life and sense of belonging to intricate and entangled contemporary issues. Looking back on the preparation process, whether for the award or the exhibition, we find that images have always accompanied us, serving as the starting point, the destination, and the guide throughout this artistic journey, across a long course of reflection and dialogue. Building on the experience, the exhibition commences with the question “Where Will Images Take Us?,” inviting audiences to walk into the creators’ world of sarcasm, absurdity, nihility, and detachment. Within these images, the viewers are invited to discover a space for perception and reflection made possible by the freedom of artistic expression and open to what remains ambiguous. As viewers journey through the exhibition’s three sections: “Where do I come from?,” “Untimely Visions,” and “Images as Action,” they can see how the creators, through distinct professional backgrounds and aesthetic choices, engage in soul-searching inquiries that go beyond the personal, also demonstrating a subtle attentiveness to the political and historical contexts of contemporary society. Taken as a whole, these fifteen emerging photographers embody a continuous practice of introspection and action through creation. They proactively excavate the traces of the past and express themselves in a way close enough to both the land and shared humanity in the tilted world. Thus, beyond what is seen within the images themselves, the exhibition invites viewers to consider how images are made, and the movements that accompany them.

Even though the dialogues among the works are powerful enough to speak out to the world, the fifteen works on display still strike us with a forceful reminder not to stop questioning how photography can continue to deepen in meaning in an age of image abundance. As an extended event of the announcement of the award recipients, the exhibition is titled After New Wave Photography Award—Emerging Photographers in Taiwan, focusing on moving forward with creators after the accolade, with the exhibition conceived not only to identify and support emerging Taiwanese creators, but also as a new starting point for creative practice. As a new beginning for creation, the exhibition has undergone a curatorial process involving extensive discussions and collaboration between the curatorial team and the artists, as well as reselection and further development of works, finally demonstrated in four sections at the site. This labor-intensive and demanding process aims not only to reposition the winning works beyond the framework of competition, presenting them anew to the public within a broader artistic context, but also to create opportunities for dialogue initiated through photographic practice. Such conversations will ultimately become concrete energy that nourishes both the creators’ thinking and their ongoing artistic endeavors.

Since the New Wave Photography Award aspires toward the democratization of art, embodied through the cultivation and support of individual freedom of thought and spirit, each opportunity for dialogue opened up through art in the exhibition aims to continuously seek the connective forces that link individuals into a shared and interrelated presence. In this way, democratized art becomes an ongoing exercise in democracy, exploring how people might live together.