Yu-Sheng Chiu (b.1999) is a photo-based artist living in Ottawa, Canada who uses self-portraiture to explore how solitude, memories, and the ever-changing definition of femininity have constructed her experiences as a Taiwanese woman in the artistic and political climates of this world. Notions of aloneness and navigation inform her practice of examining human forms and landscape that creates hospitable, home-like spaces to exist within. Using medium format film with an intuitive approach, she enhances her predominantly analog practice by also including multi-disciplinary elements.

I use self-portraiture to explore the complexity between being Taiwanese, a woman and an artist in today’s political climate. I find similarity in the challenges and gifts I face in all three roles trying to thrive while having to constantly prove the legitimacy of my existence in the geographical and psychological solitude. Working predominately on medium format film, I take an intuitive approach to my photography, incorporating long exposure to record movements of confusion, grief, and ecstasy. Through recording human forms this way, I get to honour these emotions that would otherwise get lost in the negative spaces.