Simon Chang (Taiwan/Slovenia)
Sketchbook by the sea (WIP)
Sketchbook by the Sea is an ongoing visual inquiry into the everyday life and unseen rhythms of coastal environments. Working with both analog and digital media, this project draws inspiration from the act of sketching – not as a method of replication, but as a way of sensing and responding to the world. The sea serves not only as a subject but as a collaborator, shaping the visual language of the work through its tides, labor, histories, and silences.
This project is deeply rooted in my personal story. I was born and raised in Taiwan, a small island surrounded by the sea. In 2003, I moved to Prague, in the Czech Republic – an inland country with no coastline. Since 2010, I have lived in Slovenia, a small Central European country with only 47 kilometers of coast. After more than two decades living in Europe, I often find myself missing not just Taiwan itself, but more precisely, the sensation of being surrounded by the sea.
Sketchbook by the Sea began years ago and has grown into a long-term, evolving photography project. It is a visual journey undertaken by an islander – now living far from the ocean – who uses photography as a means to reconnect with childhood memories and to explore a distant, almost mythic, sense of home.
So far, the project has included work documenting the fishermen of Vrsar, a small village on the western coast of Croatia’s Istrian peninsula; a first exploratory sketch made during my visit to Nida, Lithuania, where I was invited to present my work as part of NIDA. Meeting Photography 2024; and, of course, images taken along Taiwan’s Pacific coast during my recent visits home.
This project continues to expand like a growing sketchbook – a collection of visual fragments, assembling a personal puzzle of memory and belonging. The sea appears in these images as vast, powerful, and ever-shifting. It surrounds not only the island of my youth but also the creative and emotional landscape I carry with me. Like the tides themselves, this project reflects an image that is always in flux – never fixed, never fully resolved.
Sketchbook by the Sea invites viewers to experience this process of observation and reflection – not as a final narrative, but as an open-ended meditation on distance, memory, and the quiet power of the sea in shaping who we are.
Simon has been a documentary photographer in Europe since 2003, focusing on stories of marginalized communities, unheard voices, and mental health in post-conflict regions. After graduating from Fu-Jen Catholic University in Taipei, he moved to Prague in 2004 to pursue a master’s in photography at FAMU. Since 2010, he has been based in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
He won the Slovenia Press Photo Awards for Best Story (people/sport) in 2011, 2012, and 2015. He also received the Kaohsiung Awards (2011) and the Golden Tripod Awards for Publications (2018, 2020, 2021), two of Taiwan’s top contemporary art and book accolades. His work has been exhibited in museums and galleries across Europe and Asia, including Reina Sofia Museum (Spain), National Centre for Contemporary Arts (Russia), Cankarjev Dom (Slovenia), Collegium Hungaricum Berlin (Germany), Trieste Contemporanea (Italy), Taipei Fine Arts Museum, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, and National Art Museum (China).
His latest book, Shepherds and the Slaughterhouse (Galerija Fotografija, 2023), won "Best Designed Book" at the 2023 Ljubljana International Book Fair. It was also shortlisted for the 2024 Brumen Design Award (Slovenia), the Athens Photo Festival Pick:24 Book Award (Greece), and won in the Photobook category at the 2024 Belfast Photo Festival (UK).
