In this Episode of Art is Awesome, Host Emily Wilson spends time with photographer Shao Feng Hsu.
Welcome to Art is Awesome, the show where we talk with an artist or art worker with a connection to the San Francisco Bay Area.
Today, Emily chats with photographer Shao Feng Hsu.
About Artist Shao Feng Hsu:
Shao-Feng Hsu is a photographer whose work around the world mainly focuses on the interaction of humans and aquatic environment. From his native Taiwan — where he trained as a competitive swimmer — to Australia, Cambodia, Japan, and beyond, Shao-Feng Hsu has immersed himself in aquatic cultures in an ongoing study of the impact of the Anthropocene Era on our waters. In December 2017, he was selected to participate in Angkor Photo Festival Workshop, where he documented life in a village without proper sanitation and running water. Expanding on the project's themes back in Taiwan, he collaborated with the environmental NGO, RE-Think, on projects to illustrate shoreline pollution. His project, Inner Tidal Zones, combines color photograms and digital images to capture the perspective of aquatic creatures and the emotions of the water. He is a graduate of the Creative Practices program at the International Center of Photography and a recipient of Rita K. Hillman Award of Excellence. During the pandemic lockdown he co-founded Fotodemic.org and cademy.biz. He is currently a Fellow at the Headlands Center of the Arts and teaches B&W darkroom at California College of the Arts (CCA) Photography Program.
Visit Shao's Website: ShaoFengHsu.com
Follow Shao on Instagram: @ShaoFengHsu
For more about the Headlands Graduate Fellowships HERE.
Pictures of You: Headlands Center for the Arts Graduate Fellowship Exhibition at The Lab
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About Podcast Host Emily Wilson:
Emily a writer in San Francisco, with work in outlets including Hyperallergic, Artforum, 48 Hills, the Daily Beast, California Magazine, Latino USA, and Women’s Media Center. She often writes about the arts. For years, she taught adults getting their high school diplomas at City College of San Francisco.
Follow Emily on Instagram: @PureEWil
Follow Art Is Awesome on Instagram: @ArtIsAwesome_Podcast
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CREDITS:
Art Is Awesome is Hosted, Created & Executive Produced by Emily Wilson.
Theme Music "Loopster" Courtesy of Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
The Podcast is Co-Produced, Developed & Edited by Charlene Goto of @GoToProductions.
For more info, visit Go-ToProductions.com
2023-08-01 - AIA - EP006 - Shao Feng Hsu
[00:00:00] Artist Shao Feng Hsu: Sometimes I think about photography has to do with grabbing things outside and making descriptive images to represent what's inside of an artist. This is like literally things from within, like what's going on in my body, in my brain, and comes out in a photographic print.
[00:00:24] Host Emily Wilson: This is Art is Awesome, the show where we talk to an artist or art worker with a connection to the San Francisco Bay Area. I'm your host, Emily Wilson. And today, we'll be talking to photographer and Headlands graduate fellow, Shao Feng Hsu. I first saw Shao-Feng’s work at a Minnesota Street Project show, As You Summon Other Worlds.
There were photograms from his series, Night Swimming, where he held his breath under water and then blew air out and used a flash to make exposures onto light sensitive paper. The black and white pictures of exhaled bubbles of air were weirdly mesmerizing. Water is central to Shao-Feng’s life. and art.
He had asthma as a kid and took swimming lessons to strengthen his lungs. He became a competitive swimmer in college and started photographing the swim team. That inspired him to switch his career plans from engineer to photographer. Shao Feng wanted to learn English well enough to go to New York's International Center of Photography or ICP.
His brother and sister were living in Australia. So he moved there to learn the language and worked as a lifeguard. After a few years, he moved to New York to study at the ICP. Then he came to San Francisco to go to the California College of the Arts. Now he teaches in the photography department there.[00:02:00]
Night swimming series when the jurors award and a show at SF camera work on view through August 5th. He's currently a graduate fellow at the Headland Center for the Arts.
We met at the lab in San Francisco to see a show of the Headland fellows work pictures of you named after a cure song. Shaofeng says being around or in water interests him and inspires his art.
[00:02:34] Artist Shao Feng Hsu: Every time I'm learning something different, you know, the lights or the environment, even sometimes the water is inaccessible.
I would like be questioning why is that? And that interests me too. So sometimes meditative as a kid that I was in the water, but I didn't know that was a meditative. And it's calm, feels like sense of home, [00:03:00] and it's probably one way I can express myself truly. And you know, it's like one of the best places you can play around, make art.
[00:03:11] Host Emily Wilson: Shao-Feng went to college for engineering and was on the swim team. His life felt regulated. Then, he started taking photos of the team and found that freeing.
[00:03:22] Artist Shao Feng Hsu: I was also, like, taking a film class. I just, I never thought that could be a way that I can, like, express things. And that's, like, kind of how I get into it.
And ever since, I just start photographing around the water.
[00:03:37] Host Emily Wilson: Before going to the International Center of Photography, Shao-Feng went to Australia.
[00:03:43] Artist Shao Feng Hsu: I had this dream of learning photography in New York. But my English was really bad and my sister and my brother was there at the time. So I moved there. I was planning for going there for a year, but ended up staying three years and a half.
[00:03:57] Host Emily Wilson: Shao-Feng did go study at the ICP. It was a great experience for him
[00:04:01] Artist Shao Feng Hsu: I'm like a standing billboard for them because I feel like I had the best education in my life. Like I never feel. I can express myself so much in ways that I can never have done, and what they offer is a wild range of photographic practice.
I love every single day to being there and like talk about photography and make photographs every day. At the
[00:04:27] Host Emily Wilson: ICP, Shao-Feng met Nelson Chang, a professor at the California College of the Arts. Shao-Feng wanted to make work he cared about. And he thought Cheng was someone who could help him do that.
[00:04:40] Artist Shao Feng Hsu: You rarely see an Asian guy in the art world, or like the way he was functioning.
I think there's definitely that, that I was thinking about, but I didn't know that was a thing before I come to the state. But just like, I think the longer that I'm like in the field, it's like, maybe there's [00:05:00] just a sense of comfort there.
[00:05:02] Host Emily Wilson: The Headland's residency has been great for his art.
[00:05:06] Artist Shao Feng Hsu: What I can tell you is that, um, it's an incredible space to be like the sense of community and studio space.
I mean, when I talk about studio space, it isn't just like the studio, but like sometimes I see like outdoors my studio. And that's like essentially where I make work. It's amazing to be around, um, those aquatic space and thinking about the history behind that military base, which. I did serve in the military in Taiwan, so there's, you know, a parallel history there that I was interested in.
[00:05:46] Host Emily Wilson: Shao Feng started his Headlands residency in the fall. Now, in the summer, he says it feels like a different place. As a bonus, his studio is near the water.
[00:05:58] Artist Shao Feng Hsu: I can like literally see the beach and it's like where I'm going to get a studio somewhere else in my life has like a beach view. You know, I take a lot more walks there compare any other studio that I ever have.
And I think that just like feeds me as a person or like as a creature.
[00:06:18] Host Emily Wilson: Another thing Shao Feng really likes about the Headlands is the fellows eat dinner together.
[00:06:27] Artist Shao Feng Hsu: The communal dinner, which is important to me, and because I'm Taiwanese, and the way we like, um, connect with people is having communal meals, like growing up with the family. And so it's important for me to feel like home.
[00:06:45] Host Emily Wilson: Shao Feng came up with his own method for recording his breath underwater. He used light sensitive paper and a flash to capture the bubbles of air and set up a way to process the image right next to where he submerged [00:07:00] himself. He did it during the new moon, when it was darkest out.
[00:07:05] Artist Shao Feng Hsu: So I can like do it only like once a month. So the process was I set up a darkroom trays by the pool. It's like a small kiddo pool, but it's like deep enough to make the exposure or the bubble can take shape.
The process was I lay the photographic paper, uh, on the top of the water and they motion slide face down. And then I see myself down with the weight and to the bottom of the pool. And I pop my breath as a bubble ring and sort of hearing that channel upwards. And as soon as it's about or hit the paper or the moment it hits the paper, I make a flash.
[00:07:52] Host Emily Wilson: He came up with this method as a way to represent his physical relationship with the water, something dark and messy and hard to describe. He says he wanted to put his own body and the photographic material in the water. He also wanted an image of something that came from inside his body.
[00:08:11] Artist Shao Feng Hsu: Those are air bubbles. Also, there's a relationship of the distance between the bubble and the paper. So, like, these ones are literally, the bubble itself is touching the paper, so it's so sharp. And these ones still have, like, some little distance between. Um, the print and the bubble. I think what's interesting is also what you are looking at it's things from internal like it's literally the things was taking shape. Um, you know coming out from my lawn and Sometimes I think about photography has to do with you know, grabbing things outside And like making descriptive image to represent what's in inside of An artist or a photographer, [00:09:00] but this is like literally things from within, like what's going on in my body, in my brain, and it comes out in a photographic print.
[00:09:16] Host Emily Wilson: This is the part of the show called three questions, where I end every conversation with the same three questions to learn a little more about the artist. When did you know you were an artist? What was a work of art that made an impression on you? And what is the most creatively inspiring place in the Bay Area?
[00:09:37] Artist Shao Feng Hsu: A lot of times you're thinking, like, what defines an artist, and I'm, like, still in the process of working through it. But I think the moment that I realized I can make things that wasn't existed before, that's, like, the moment I think, you know, I might become... One, because it's a special things that I can invent in the visual art.
[00:09:59] Host Emily Wilson: For a work that affected him, Shao Feng named two — Seventh Wave by Tren Parke documenting Australian beach life and Image Atlas by Taryn Simon about cultural differences and similarities.
[00:10:12] Artist Shao Feng Hsu: I think what get me to do what I'm doing first was this, um, Trent Parke and here's this body of work called the seventh wave and that have impact how I see aquatic space so much just like the movement and the power and the dynamic exists its image. I'll just say, Oh, this is a possible. So there's a path for me that I can pursue. The other person was Taryn Simon, actually.
I think it's like the most impactful installation that I came across early on in my artistic career. So the project is called Image Atlas was basically an installation in a little room with a projector and you have a keyboard that you can like search any keywords in any language and it will come up with Google search image and from a different country that I was also learning English. So we're just fascinating to see an artwork was sort of resonate what I was thinking about how each language interpreted different things in different way. And how does that look visually?
[00:11:39] Host Emily Wilson: Not surprisingly, Shao Feng says the shoreline is the most creatively inspiring place in the Bay Area.
[00:11:47] Artist Shao Feng Hsu: Even though I revisit places, I mean same place every time, it looks different and I love and enjoy see that gradual change. That feeds me, that inspires me. And I make images with it.
[00:12:08] Host Emily Wilson: Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Art is Awesome. And thanks to our guest, Shao Feng Shu. You can get more information and link to his work in our show notes. His Night Swimming series is up at SF Camerawork at San Francisco's Fort Mason through August 5th. Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
In our next episode, we'll have a conversation with Kelly Inouye who makes large watercolors of pop culture images, such as women's wrestling and MTV. Kelly also ran an artist residency in the outer sunset of San Francisco. The artist there went on to have shows at venues including the Oakland Museum and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
One of the artists who had a residency there was Cathy Lu, our first guest on this podcast.
Art is Awesome is a bi weekly podcast dropping every other Tuesday. It was created and hosted by me, Emily Wilson. It is produced and edited by Charlene Gotu of Gotu Productions. Our theme music is provided by Kevin MacLeod with Incompetech Music. Be sure to follow us on social media or visit our website.
Till next time.[00:14:00]