Inquisitiveness of a journalist, artistry of a photographer

The series of works named after George Orwell’s allegorical novel Animal Farm. The Animal Farm series is composed of 36 works, complex tableaus, and intimate portraits. The large works are just under two meters wide, the portraits just over a meter wide. So all the works are large in scale. The complex and fable like tableaus are much more than just replacing the animals in the zoo with humans in the zoo.

Chi-Ming Lin, Professor and Chairman Department of Arts and Design, National Taipei University of Education, describes the body of works being presented in three different stages of major social structures that modern humans have not been able to escape and are not realising this fact. The stages are, firstly the structure of body consciousness; secondly the structure of survival consciousness and thirdly the structure of collective behaviour and consciousness.

In his latest project Animal Farm, Ching-hui Chou employs movie production resources : staged sets, lighting design, character styling and props. Ching-hui Chou’s photographs were all shot with 8x10 format color on film and is a unique approach to staged photography. It took photographer and his crew of over 60 people, 5 years time to create this astonishing collection. In this series, the photographer transformed his role from “a hunter” to “a director”.

曾多次承辦周慶輝展覽的台北市立美術館副館長蔣雨芳說：「周老師的作品都會說話，他在台灣當代攝影家中，算是很成熟的藝術創作者；周老師的另一半替他設計的攝影集也都非常精緻，他們每一次的專題都展現親力親為的誠懇態度。」2010年展開「動物園」拍攝計畫，以不同人物、場景、道具隱喻人在社會中一如動物被關在籠子裡的意象，以拍攝電影的高規格展開，拍攝前還要先繪製3D全景模擬圖。

曾是駐守立法院的攝影記者，因緣造訪了樂生療養院開啟拿相機「搞藝術」的軌跡。周慶輝的作家好友張大春形容他是「縫補破碎生命的拾荒人，收拾樂生人一點一點失守的生命和記憶，拾著、拾著，把自己也縫進裡面去了。」在樂生療養院「蹲點」三年，痲瘋病友的肢體會因病日漸凋殘，但在他的黑白照片中，留下的不是一點一點短少掉的生命，而是汲水、下棋、打四色牌等如此凡常的起居溫度。長達三年的「樂生紀實」，最後結束在一位痲瘋病友第二代的婚禮。周慶輝解釋：「第二代選擇在院內教堂成婚，不再避諱讓別人看到自己的原生家庭，而且也敢於走出去組成自己的家庭。」或許老天早已寫好樂生療養院內的每段故事、每套劇本，但他還是為這段記錄留下一個充滿美意的結局。

「我的攝影從一而終，都是關注人的生存狀態，但創作手段脈絡不見得如此，這跟我每次作品都希望與上個作品的敘事方式不一樣有關。」從新聞報導往藝術的層面轉變，周慶輝坦言《人的莊園》之後其實壓力很大，因為想為新作品找到合適的敘事方式。周慶輝目前正在籌備的新企劃，在與 Wonder Foto 的對談中悄悄的揭露：「目前的拍攝計畫正從 60 到 70 位個案從中找出彼此關聯，藉由「傾聽」喚回「生活記憶」跟「生活物件」構成不同的文本及解說，透過「聲音」、「場景」、「肖像」、「物件裝置」、「錄像」的再造作為對某段歷史與時光的緬懷、追憶，抑或是一種反省甚至控訴，然背後仍皆淡淡潛藏著我們對居住生活環境的反思。