Artist Chen Chieh-jen exhibits widely in his home country Taiwan and internationally. In 2009 his work Empire’s Borders was included in the Taiwan Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennale. Chieh-jen was first shown in the Taiwan Pavilion in 1999 at the 48th Venice Bienniale. In 2005 he was one of 41 artists presented by curator Maria de Corral in the Padiglione Italia, The experience of art, at the 51st Biennale di Venezia, Venice.
In the intervening years Chen Chieh-jen has continued to work with photography, film, installation and performance to explore issues which have a particular global resonance. Globalisation, labour, consumerism, migration, and the power of images are addressed by his works.
Chieh-jen uses his filmmaking as an act of resistance… ‘as an act of connection, linking together the history of people who have been excluded from the dominant discourse, the real-life situations of areas that are being ignored, and ‘others’ who are being isolated. In this way, I resist the state of amnesia in consumer society.”1
Chieh-jen was included in the Third Guangzhou Triennial in 2008, the 10th International Istanbul Biennial in 2007. Film work The Route was commissioned by Tate Gallery for the Liverpool Biennale International in 2006. In 1998 Chieh-jen exhibited at the XXIV Bienal de São Paulo, Brasil, In 2002 his work Lingchi- Echoes of a Historical Photograph was presented at the 2002 Taipei Biennial. This complex film work was also shown in Italy in 2004.
Chen Chieh-jen’s film works have been exhibited at international film festivals featuring experimental, independent and short film forms – including the Vancouver International Film Festival: Experimental Short Films in 2004; Buenos Aires Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente (BAFICI), in Buenos Aires in 2005; and the 37th International Film Festival in Rotterdam in 2008. Chen Chieh-jen has been nominated to receive the prestigious Artes Mundi Prize 2009.
1 (http://timessquare.com/Events/Art_Shows/Video_Works_By_Taiwanese_Artist_Chen_Chieh-Jen_at_Asia_Society/)