Draft:Felisa Tan



Felisa Tan (born May 25, 1993) is an Indonesian photographer, author, and speaker.: Her work is mainly composed of street and interpretative photography.

Tan began teaching herself photography in 2007 at the age of 14. Beginning with making photographs at home and posting them regularly on DeviantArt, she continues her artistic career through exhibitions, speaking events, and multidisciplinary collaborations. She also regularly engages with her audience through her website and social media handles.

Tan's self-taught endeavours have achieved numerous recognitions, which include but are not limited to being assigned as an official visitor photographer at the historical Perth Royal Show in 2017, and having her work featured on DeviantArt's Daily Deviation on 27 January 2011 and Instagram's Weekend Hashtag Project (#whpfilltheframe) on 22 September 2015.

Tan's debut book In Search for Meaning is a fusion of photography, poetry, and secular spirituality, and was published on March 2023 by Goff Books (Novato, CA), an imprint of ORO Editions. The book was designed and layouted by Febrina Ay, with its overall visual identity directed by Aulia Akbar   since its release.



On 9 March 2024, Tan had her first TEDx Talk at TEDxYouth@SWA, which was organized by Sinarmas World Academy, to which she had been invited six months prior, approximately six months after the book's publication. Her initial title for the talk was 'Outside In, Inside Out: 5 Life Lessons from Photography' before having the global TEDx committee retitling it to '5 things photography helps you appreciate in life' on YouTube.

Personal Life
Tan's fondness and enthusiasm of visual arts, books, and writing began as early as childhood. She often recalls growing up with drawing and colouring with dry media well until her early 20s. However, her efforts have largely been shifted to focus on photography ever since she first encountered it in 2007 when she was 14.

She also started writing diary entries as soon as she knew how to write around the age of 5. In her own words, she feels that both visual arts and writing together serve as a natural medium to channel her "pent up" thoughts and feelings, and to help her make sense of her own curiosity, observation, and understanding of the world inside out. Disciplined reading and writing are habits that she maintains until now.

Tan's parental upbringing has exposed her to extensive travels to over 50 countries since a tender age―a part of her family culture that she believes to have helped her in developing a deep appreciation for different cultures and perspectives.

Tan earned a Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree from Edith Cowan University, Western Australia, graduating in 2015.

It was there that she crossed paths with the Western Australian artist-photographer Kevin Ballantine as a lecturer, whom she credited as the first person to introduce her to fine-art photography and photo books.

Style
Tan's philosophy as an artist is summarized in her Artist Biography in In Search for Meaning


 * Honouring beauty as it is, she aims to keep her work as accurate as possible to her real-life encounters. The breadth of her subjects is a reflection of her sensitivity to perceive beauty, even in the most ordinary places.


 * Through her work, she hopes to inspire her audience to pause and cherish the myriad blessings that might otherwise be left unnoticed in a world of noise.

Tan's photographs are often accompanied by prose or poetry, combining visual and literary languages as a unified form of expression. Her photographic style is almost akin to conventional street and documentary photography with minimum post-processing, and so is the titling of her work. However, the way she renders the meaning out of her visual experience is distinctive in that it is almost always interpretative with philosophical and spiritual undertones, conveying messsages and values that are at once deeply subjective and personal, yet widely universal.

Influence
Tan openly mentions on various occasions that she feels a profoundly emotional and holistic connection with her distant mentors and primary sources of inspiration in her craft, with Joel Meyerowitz being foremost, then followed by Stephen Shore and Brassaï.

From time to time, she pronounces with confidence and humour that she is certainly one of the world's most passionate and wholehearted admirers of Meyerowitz with the most complete collection of his publications, and that she feels a similar sentiment towards him to how Steve Jobs felt about Socrates when he said, I would trade all of my technology for an afternoon with Socrates.

Photo book and monograph

 * In Search for Meaning: Photography and Writing by Felisa Tan. With a foreword by Kevin Ballantine. Novato, CA: Goff Books, 2023. ISBN 978-1-957183-01-5. (Book Design and Layout: Febrina Ay)

TEDx

 * 2024: 5 things photography helps you appreciate in life, TEDxYouth@SWA, Sinarmas World Academy, BSD City, Indonesia, 9 March 2024

Book Event

 * 2023: In Search for Meaning Book Discussion & Beyond, Periplus Bookstore Plaza Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia, 14 December 2023

Exhibitions

 * 2024: Unconditional Love Interdisciplinary Art Exhibition (Group), Créativité, Jakarta, Indonesia, 17 February–17 March 2024
 * 2023: Indonesia Photo Fair (Group), M Bloc Space, Jakarta, Indonesia, 8–20 September 2023
 * 2023: In Search for Meaning] (Solo), Padma Resort Legian (Sarasvati Concept Store) ), Bali, Indonesia, 4 March–19 August 2023 (Exhibition Design by Thufeil Hadi, Visual Identity by Aulia Akbar )
 * 2023: In Search for Meaning (Solo), TAT Art Space, Bali, Indonesia, 4 March–9 April 2023 (Exhibition Design by Thufeil Hadi, Visual Identity by Aulia Akbar )
 * 2018: The Print Swap Holiday Exhibition (Group), Root Studios, Brooklyn, NY, 13 December 2018

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