Published on：2020-10-16Views：31
Artwork Analysis
"Bade Area" is a silent video completed by Chen Chieh-Jen in 2005, filmed in the Bade region, Taoyuan, documenting the prosperity and decline of Bade and the traces of the lives of locals from a unique perspective. "Bade Area" comes in five parts, with no continuity between them but corresponding to each other. The images show ruin-like scenes: old computers, office desks and chairs, scattered and garbled cables and more. The artist has invited a few temporarily employed workers to enter the site and "labor."
Chen makes good use of the various symbol elements of video to voice a critique. For instance, the real estate sign "Majestic Grand Town" that connects the former and latter sections of the video, connects to an abandoned office in the end. The sign symbolizes a discrepancy between the before and after, while the temporary workers are asked to repeat the same acts of labor silently in an enclosed, dark, and dusty space. "Bade Area" leads the viewer to contemplate on what labor entails and why one engages in labor.
Bade used to be one of Taiwan's hubs concentrated with labor-intensive factories. In the late 1980s to the 1990s, many factories moved offshore to other countries with cheaper labor causing sudden losses of jobs among Bade's laborers who had to seek work as temporary hires. Chen Chieh-Jen commented on his own works, "Though I call this 'Bade,' I did not intend to realistically document or concretely present a place called 'Bade.' The 'rupture' that exists between its original meaning and the life experience of its locals is, from certain angles, a 'forecast' of the development of these places.
Chen makes good use of the various symbol elements of video to voice a critique. For instance, the real estate sign "Majestic Grand Town" that connects the former and latter sections of the video, connects to an abandoned office in the end. The sign symbolizes a discrepancy between the before and after, while the temporary workers are asked to repeat the same acts of labor silently in an enclosed, dark, and dusty space. "Bade Area" leads the viewer to contemplate on what labor entails and why one engages in labor.
Bade used to be one of Taiwan's hubs concentrated with labor-intensive factories. In the late 1980s to the 1990s, many factories moved offshore to other countries with cheaper labor causing sudden losses of jobs among Bade's laborers who had to seek work as temporary hires. Chen Chieh-Jen commented on his own works, "Though I call this 'Bade,' I did not intend to realistically document or concretely present a place called 'Bade.' The 'rupture' that exists between its original meaning and the life experience of its locals is, from certain angles, a 'forecast' of the development of these places.
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