Enclosed Landscape

'Enclosed Landscape' is a project by Macau photographer Alan Ieon on the city's landscape. In the city of spectacle casinos and romanticized landscapes, IEON has focused his camera on the man-made temporary structures hidden beneath these grand spectacles - construction hoardings - in a typographic attempt to show readers a different Macau from the stereotypes seen on the internet.

As a photobook dedicated to these 'unfinished' construction structure, the book does not want to restrict the reader's way of reading and imagination of the landscape, so it adopts the accordion pull-out pages in a roundabout format, allowing the book to be read either in a forward or backward manner, with the reader being able to turn the pages in different forms, such as a two-page set like a normal hardcover book;or the pages can be stretched out on the table in a four-page set to imitate the wavy shape of a hoarding. Alternatively, the whole pages can be pulled out to stand up with the cover, transforming the book into a hoarding-like installation. As the pages are placed side by side, they naturally form another continuous, impenetrable wall. And within this wall of paper, 'Enclosed Landscape' hopes to re-examine with the readers this 'same landscape' in various narrative structures, while challenging with the author the seemingly natural relationship between development, landscape and power.

Language: Chinese & English

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Alan IEON was born in 1987 in Macau and graduated in the department of Physics at National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan. He currently lives and works in Macau.

He is one of the editors and founders of the Macau photo collective “Dialect”, a photo collective which is dedicated to photography education in Macau. As a city resident living in a former colony, most of his documentary photography work is associated with urban scenery and focuses on themes related to the system of the city, nation as well as personal identity. In his work, he tries to rediscover fragmented and hidden records scattered around the city. Through these hidden fragments, he seeks to reflect on what reality is and point out the absurdity of the system, and during this process, explore the purpose of self-existence.

 Having participated in different exhibitions since 2015, his works have been shown in various exhibitions and reviews in different countries and regions including Macau, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, Singapore and Hungary. Beside his own works, IEON also practices in photobook editing. As a photography columnist writer, his articles about photobooks, photography culture and photography history can be seen in columns on the internet and local newspapers in Macau.