Hsu Che-Yu was born in 1985 in Taipei, where he lives and works. His videos and installations explore the dialectical relations between reality and its representations—those conveyed by the media, the collective imagination, and Taiwanese society’s beliefs. Hsu Che-Yu has developed a personal graphic vocabulary characterized by simplified lines, flat tints, and geometric patterns, which he incorporates in the form of animation into video footage shot by himself or his entourage, or that he has found elsewhere. This immediate visual language is inspired by the Taiwanese tabloid newspaper Apple Daily (closed 2021), known for its animated news images that caught the attention but were overly simplistic. Merging the histories of himself, his family and friends with media narratives, Hsu Che-Yu constructs ways to explore the familial, educational, and political structures that shape private life.

In No News from Home (2016), he reflects on how these structures molded his brother’s life up to the birth of his first child. Based on family scenes centering on the baby boy Hsu Li-Wen, the work makes reference to the pressure exerted by the educational system and parental expectations, the impact of political events on the individual’s private life, and the constraints imposed by certain beliefs.

Marcella Lista, 2019

Translated by Timothy Stroud