People dwelling in these cubicles are mainly the grassroots who have no means of changing their destiny. They barely exist below the poverty line, with poor quality of life and confined social network, thus often exist in a passive, lost, alienated and melancholic, a sub-health mental state of mind.

Cubicle Life was literally cramped to sealed spaces that are unknown and seemingly detached from this city. Perhaps this is where lonely souls learn to live with abject privations.

The stories of cubicle dwellers presented from cinematic angles through touching scenes, portraits and point-of-view shots. With great sensitivity to colour and tonal subtleties, a highly coherent body of powerful images has created.

Just as I did in my previous projects, I deftly use a mix of medium shots and close-ups to connect and interact with my subjects. The results were honest yet unobtrusive – to capture the characters on camera with their dignity.

Today, documentary photography is disdained by the mass media, and documentary photographers are literally boxed into a corner. It is only through candour and sincerity –the fundamental qualities that drive the endeavours of these photographers – that their creativity can be sustained through tough times.

Through image after image of life experiences, I have relived every down-and-out soul who is kept alive in the confines of their own cubicle, a space they call home. Over the course of this project, I kept asking myself two questions:

What does it mean to exist? How could freedom be realized?

Martin Heidegger, exploring Taoism in his later years, ruminated over the phrase:

‘Poetically man dwells.’

This is a state of life.

We have to remove the shackles of alienation and oppression before we can start putting an end to inhuman states of existence, and enable every individual to reach their true potential.

Cubicle Life gives light to the lives that are buried under the dictatesof elitism revered by our society. It also exposes the plight the underprivileged are trapped in, a situation where they are deprived of any opportunityfor upward mobility. It also attempts to find out the meaning of life, as well as the worth of human existence.

                    public cemeteries in Manila

Chun Wai

The North Cemetery in the Philippines’ capital of Manila is crowded and dilapidated. It is not just where the deceased rest in peace, but also where many poor people call home. The latter have come from remote villages.

Since most of the lands in the country are monopolized by rich landlords, farmers are forced to become tenant-farmers. Unable to repay their loans, these farmers leave their hometowns reluctantly to seek livelihood in Manila, thus becoming the urban poor.

The graveyard is jam-packed, the sanitary conditions appalling. Graves with shelters are most sought after as they help to combat the toxic hot weather and typhoons that batter the region.

Water is another problem. The residents have to buy and bottle drinking water for later consumption.

As space is limited, the grave dwellers place their meager belongings in the corners of the graveyard and use the coffins as their beds. Bizarre as it may seem to those who know little about the background, the scene is infinitely miserable. Every year when All Saints Day arrives, the residents move all their belongings out of the graveyard to let families mourn their deceased loved ones.

What does it feel like to live in a cemetery? Is there really no other choice for these human lives? Over the past two years, I had paid several visits to various cemeteries of Manila and interviewed many grave dwellers.

“Indeed, I have no choice!” Marilia said helplessly, aged around 60. Marilia has been living in the North Manila Public Cemetery for years. She lived in a rural village before that. Unable to tolerate the difficult life in her hometown, she came to Manila to seek livelihood. Now she lives in the graveyard with her daughter and grandchildren. All the family members sleep on the floor inside the grave, over which Marilia has fixed a crude iron sheet. Plastic sheets dangle on two sides of the grave to provide some privacy. A copy of “The Last Supper” by Leonardo da Vinci hangs on the wall like a picture of revelation, divulging the ridiculousness of the world.

I began to follow the condition of poverty in the Philippines in 2004. As some customs of the land system from the colonial periods persist, current polices on land ownership and use still favor the few major syndicates which own lands. Farmers who cannot afford to pay rents or repay their loans have no choice but to leave their hometowns in hopes of making a living in the big cities, only to become the urban poor.

Children running and playing add to the yard of bleakness a hint of vigor, but at the same time deepen the sorrow. “Under Heaven” is a real story of peculiarities, of the vulnerable community which has been pushed aside to live without help and whose meaning of existence is diminished. It is a real story of those who walk an ill-fated journey in silence.

“Under Heaven” won the Annual Human Rights Press Awards 2010 – Prize in Photojournalism

“When it comes to photography, what matters is not that the picture we took is beautiful, but that it channels genuine feelings and things beyond its own frame. Sometimes, an original artist with a creative mind shows you not only his works, but also his personality, the efforts he put into his works, what went through his mind, and the frustration he experienced, and even a totality.”

Chun Wai’s works have brought this kind of long-forgotten feeling to me once again through his deeply respectful and attentive attitude toward photography and also those varied images conjured up by photography. I can’t help asking myself this question:

In a digital world where images are being produced and presented at a speeded-up pace, how could someone be still so stubborn to use a 120 film medium format camera to produce black and white photographs that are not so “bright and attractive to the eye”, exerting himself for years without seeking practical gains? What’s more, rather than presenting the foreign culture and practice as something exotic, he examines social issues overlooked by the public and, with high-quality photos draws our attention to these fragments of life that are often unnoticed.

I can tell, rather than showing off, he’s reminding us through his attentive and serious attitude towards creativity of what we have missed out, trying to help us see things more thoroughly and sincerely. These pictures have restored the suitable role of “photography,” by presenting to us, in a magnificent yet subtle manner, people living in harsh environments in a foreign land, their dignity, beliefs, ways of survival, and finally the reasons for their endurance. Photography, at this very moment, inspires respect and emotional resonance. The photographer skillfully weaves together his professional expertise, photographic language and humanitarian perspective into true works of art, dissolving himself for the viewer. I’m convinced that only through exploration of the spiritual realm will photography (or art?) be able to recover its true significance.

Frank Lei , Artistic Director of Ox Warehouse