1st Place winner
Silence in Synesthesia
DESCRIPTION
Silence in Synesthesia, an ongoing project, shows the photographer's curiosity about the time and the world we experience. Naturally, our conception of the reality around us is a continuous act of layering moments of experience. What we see as real is only defined by our belief structure. However, what is the world beyond the visible spectrum? If time can arbitrarily weave together many moments, what our perception of the moment will change in that intertwining of time? Using synesthesia, a neurological term for the mixing of senses, as a metaphor, this project probes the other side of probability and provokes the visual senses. By combining two layers of time, it creates an ambiguous experience that strives to offer a venue to encourage viewers to perceive themselves in the act of perceiving.
To create this project, images are blindly overlapped by rewinding film after it has been exposed. Adopting coincidence as a tool, two separate events—with no apparent or planned connection—are fused together by their colors and open an abstract space. Through an entangled web of intended actions and unintended instances, the act of photography is transformed into a theatrical encounter, playing with the present moment. When the seen and unseen meet—and strangeness and beauty intertwine—the light and shadow are merged into a new experience of infinite possibilities.
AUTHOR
Wen Hang Lin was born and raised in Taiwan. Inspired by Robert Frank's The Americans, he moved to America and studied photography in his early twenties. Wen is interested in expressing his philosophical observation of daily life through art and creativity. His works were in numerous exhibitions throughout the US, including Tucson Museum of Art, Mesa Arts Center, Ariz. and The Center for Fine Art Photography, Colo. He was named as the finalist for The John Chervinsky Emerging Photographer Scholarship at Griffin Museum of Photography, Mass. Wen also received Commendation Award for the Fellowship 17, at Silver Eye Center for Photography, Pa. Recently, he is awarded a gold medal in The Prix de la Photographie, Paris (P×3), for the Fine Art/Abstract category. Wen earned his B.F.A. at Arizona State University and M.F.A. at The Ohio State University. He currently has worked in the arts as a graphic designer in Phoenix, Ariz.