CHIEN-CHI CHANG : DOUBLE HAPPINESS

DETAILS:

Chien-Chi Chang (Born 1961)
40 works
Book "Double Happiness" available
10 Gelatin silver prints, 20" x 24"
30 Gelatin silver prints, 11" x 14"

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DESCRIPTION:

Double Happiness (Shuang xi) is a Chinese symbol denoting the auspicious union of two families, used to congratulate a couple on their wedding day. The symbol is comprised of the repetitions of a single character, Xi, signifying happiness or joy.

Each year thousands of Taiwanese men travel to Vietnam in search of young women to marry and take home, paying thousands of dollars for all-inclusive airfare, wife, wedding, and documentation packages. The women they meet are often decades younger and from poor farming or fishing families, trying to pay off their debts and hoping for a better life. They will certainly have a new life, perhaps one of happiness, perhaps of abuse - certainly far from home and different from what they have known. Chien-Chi Chang's photographs of these desperate men and women are not complex, or even particularly beautiful, but they capture with clarity the anxiety and moments of hope, disappointment, and tenderness we all experience in our search for happiness.

"One of the saddest preludes to happiness ever composed." - Vicki Goldberg

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