Jeff Chiu

“I left Boston with my grandfather's string bound memoir and a suitcase of his personal photo albums. Like many, our interactions were stifled by a lack of  shared language and culture. To me, his memoir, written in a foreign language, was an illegible block of information, whereas his photo albums were a point of access. The photographs were an opportunity to create new constellations of meaning. In a flash, the photograph would capture a window of light resembling familiar faces and places. Treating the photographic archive as a site for archaeology, new constellations of meaning can be realized by a process of  selection and synthesis. In selecting and tracing these ‘windows of light’ into shapes  and associations, they seem to resonate into something mystical or mythological. If  the photographic archive is a fragmented cast of history, the new images are the  distorted molds.”

Jeff Chiu works with photographs and other documents from his family archive as a way of mining his personal history and his Chinese heritage. His work explores the  fragility of intergenerational connections. Working with photography, drawing and  installation, Chiu evokes the loss of language and shifts of meaning through the  material deterioration of images as they are copied, transferred, reinterpreted and  reorganized. His works suggest new constellations of meaning.

Jeff Chiu holds a BFA in Photography Studies from Ryerson University. He is the recipient of the Amia-AGO Photography Prize Scholarship, 2016 and the SF Award in photography, School of Image Arts, Ryerson University, 2016.