The search for identity is the powerful driving force in the collection of photographs Joshua Chuang '98 is exhibiting in Collis beginning today.
The collection, titled "Chinatown: In Pursuit of Self," is a body of work that explores issues of identity and cross-culture in one of the most diverse places in the world, New York's Chinatown.
The project began, according to Chuang, as an exploration of his own Chinese-American identity.
"Growing up in suburban New Jersey created a unique conflict in me," he said. "I struggled with the desire to be an all-American kid while at the same time dealing with the expectations my parents had for me to be Taiwanese."
It was when he came to Dartmouth that he realized how unique his situation was. "This struggle and discovery of self became the seeds of this project," he said.
Out of hundreds of photographs, 22 emerged capturing the images of the self that Chuang was seeking. Beginning with his family in suburban New Jersey, Chuang's work takes the viewer on an odyssey from the suburbs into Chinatown as he searches for the meaning of identity.
Shooting these pieces in Chinatown was an interesting experience for Chuang. "Its funny, people assume that simply because I'm Chinese that I would be accepted by the people in Chinatown," he said. "The fact that I am Chinese-American didn't open Chinatown to me."
The way he dressed and acted branded him an outsider from appearance alone, his heritage did little to gain him acceptance. "In a way," he said, "this kind of reception reflected the struggle of what it means to be Chinese in America: the struggle to balance oneself between two worlds and find a sense of self."
As an outsider on the inside, Chuang's photographs provoke interesting questions of the idea of individual identity in the faces of the young and old in Chinatown.
One idea revealed by the photographs is the insularity of the Chinatown community. He came across many people there who cannot speak English. "In the heart of New York City," he said, "there was this self-sustaining microcosm of China thriving."
Another concept that Chuang developed through this collection of photographs is the images of young Chinese-Americans and their connections, or lack thereof, to their heritage. One photograph captures a young girl passing by a large truck that evokes images of youthful delicacy versus the urban industrialization.
Another remarkable image is of a young girl and two young boys on a crowded market street. The young girl's curiously cool stare is hauntingly similar to the cool stare of the nude in Manet's "Luncheon on the Grass." The image alone lends a hush to an otherwise frenetic photograph of people in a crowded market.
A picture of a boy he took captured more than just the child's innocent face. "In that image I saw myself as the boy, and I wondered what the future of the little boy would be like," he said. "Whether he would find appreciation or resentment for his unique identity in America as a Chinese-American."
In the eyes of a father in the same photograph, he sees the anger of previous generations trying "to establish a place in American" and their "suspicion for those who have made it."
The skills that allowed Chuang to capture these images over this past summer did not come by chance. "I studied photography for a year and a half before I took up this project. With the encouragement of my professor, Brian Miller, I was really able to develop this project. His enthusiasm for this work has been a major influence on my work."
Beyond the influences of Miller, Chuang cited other photographers, such as Walker Evans, Garry Winogrand and Henri Carter Bresson, the father of documentary photography.
Another fortunate influence on Chuang's collection was the foresight of Mark Hoffman, Collis Center director, who is beginning to show student art work in Collis as part of a push to make Collis more like a student union for the Dartmouth community.
Surprisingly, according to Chuang, there are very little areas where art students can display their works. With the aid of a Richter Grant, Chuang plans to continue his work in Chinatown: "I view it as a life project."
