Zoography
n. The biological description of animals and their habitats.
BFA Thesis project exploring the urban environment, the photographs are an attempt to document urban landscape as nature and interpret its natural inhabitants.
Book Format: BOOK BOUND FORMAT 14"x10"
All prints are 17x20 inches, silver gelatin print.
Selenium toned and waxed.
Afterword:
The title of Kenneth Chou's photographic essay is Zoography - the biological description of animals and their habitats. It would be difficult, however, to find any traditional images of nature or unspoiled natural environments in his work. On the contrary, the viewer is confronted with a collection of street views, depleted buildings, crowded squares, or pigeons feeding on garbage. The zoography offered here is of a different kind; it is an exploration of the relationship between an artificially constructed urban environment and whatever remains of nature. In other words, it is a critical documentary of contemporary city life and, with it, an ironic commentary on the nature of modern industrial civilization.Many images are suitably dark and gloomy. They convey a sense of an impending crisis, alienation, and inevitable contradictions in modern urban life. These are juxtaposed with images of birds, squirrels, pigs transported in metal containers or domesticated dogs set against pathetic remains of the natural world. In parkettes, leafless trees are carefully set in their concrete pots while greenhouses are full of exotic trees. Although most images represent New York City and Toronto they could have been taken in any North American city; they are generic and geographically neutral.Ken is one of those photographers who carries his Leica everywhere he goes. He shoots while he is working, shopping, or just walking capturing the essence of the city in all its human, architectural and natural diversity. Carrying his camera on a daily basis has not only enabled Ken to take pictures, but also create several photographic essays. Of course, this process derives from a long established school of Cartier-Bresson, André Kertész, Brassaï, or Garry Winogrand who also pluck their pictures from the ever-changing mosaic of city life frozen through the mechanical eye of the camera. However, unlike Winogrand's pictures, Ken's compositions attempt to uncover hidden relationships between urban decay, garbage, and human alienation with the omnipresent signs of nature; nature symbolizing the universal longing for the lost utopia of simpler and harmonious life. The issues of contemporary urban environment and its parallel social ills are confronted with forces of the natural world.In that, the ultimate message of these photographs is didactic, and perhaps optimistic.- Wieslaw Michalak
Wieslaw Michalak is a professor of geography at Ryerson University, and specializes
in data visualization and digital image processing.
He has also published articles on globalization and trading blocs, internet,art and photography.
He has held academic posts in Australia and UK.
His works can be seen at www.wzm.ca
