Tsao Tse-Wen

Tsao Tse-Wen is a Taiwanese photographer who works primarily with digital photography, encompassing both still and moving images. Her practice engages with social and cultural inquiry, identity, and human-centered documentary storytelling.

Grounded in research and critical observation, Tsao's practice begins with knowledge-building and conceptual inquiry before transitioning into image-making. While she continues to experiment with diverse photographic approaches and visual languages, her personal inclination leans toward large-scale compositions, creating a poetic tension between individuals and their surroundings.

She is particularly drawn to slow shutter techniques and the depiction of movement and duration, using fluid imagery to suggest passage, instability, and the transient nature of lived experience. Satire also plays a recurring role in her work, serving as a subtle narrative device to question social norms and reveal understated contradictions within everyday life.

Tsao's photographic path was profoundly shaped by spending four years living in mainland China and two years in the Tibetan regions, an experience that deepened her engagement with humanistic issues and observational practice. She is currently based in the United States, continuing to explore questions of culture, belonging, and lived experience through a documentary lens.