Out of the Shadows Photography Collection by Chou Ching-hui 行過幽谷 周慶輝

“Losheng Sanatorium” is a sanatorium for leprosy patients located in New Taipei City and Taoyuan City in the northern part of Taiwan. In Japan, the Leprosy Prevention Law was enacted in 1931, forcing all leprosy patients into isolation, and this was also the case in Taiwan, which was under Japanese rule at the time. As the name suggests, the Losheng Sanatorium(楽生院) was created in the name of making it "easy=楽” for patients to live without fear of discrimination, even though it was a forced quarantine. The sanitary management of the isolation, the thoroughness of the community facilities for patients such as the library, and the architecture as well as the mixture of features from the Japanese colonial period and the postwar Nationalist government period have attracted much interest.

Taiwanese photographer Chou Ching-hui has spent 13 years following the lives of patients living in the hospital, capturing their lights and shadows. The people he portrays, no matter how you look at them, leave us with a sense of the fundamental majesty of life. In his photographs, they rejoice in their own lives and grieve over the deaths of others. Life at the Losheng Sanatorium is never easy. The emotion farthest from discrimination may emanate from "knowing.

design：優秀視覚設計