Born from the Same Root

The Taiwanese-Vietnamese visual artist Tsai Ting Bang (b. 1999) began working with photography at the age of twelve. Since then, the medium has become a way for him to examine identity, intimacy, memory, and the complex structures of family life.These concerns are at the centre of Born from the Same Root, a prize-winning photobook published in a limited edition by Moom.

The project takes as its point of departure the relationship between Bang and his older brother, Hsien. Although only one year apart in age, their childhood was shaped by both closeness and confusion. As Bang recalls, the two brothers were often mistaken for one another; at times, even he struggles to distinguish who is who in their childhood photographs. The two brothers’ lives began to diverge early on. They were both separated from their parents and sent to live with their grandmother, but at different ages and under different circumstances. This early separation becomes a quiet but decisive force within the work, shaping the emotional distance that gradually emerges between them.

In this way Born from the Same Root unfolds as a dual visual narrative. Two parallel sequences of images — one following Bang, the other Hsien — begin in near symmetry, reflecting a shared childhood through mirrored gestures, domestic spaces, and fragments of memory. Over time, however, the sequences drift apart. The images slowly come to register increasingly different environments, rhythms, and forms of struggle. What begins in resemblance slowly gives way to dissonance, before returning, tentatively, to a fragile sense of proximity.

Bang’s use of a snapshot aesthetic is central to the project’s emotional force. His images evoke the visual language of the family album: casual framing, everyday interiors, and a sense of immediacy that resists formal distance. This approach creates a tension between intimacy and instability. The photographs feel familiar and accessible, yet they also suggest the fragility of memory and the impossibility of fully holding on to a passing moment.

Throughout the project, Bang reflects on a relationship marked by admiration, rivalry, and, ultimately, empathy. As a child, he envied his brother’s artistic talent and came to see him as a lifelong rival. This perception changes as Bang encounters the realities of Hsien’s adult life: isolation, fragile mental health, and a quiet struggle to endure.

A pivotal moment occurs when Hsien expresses a stark and immediate desire: “Right now, I just want to live. Living is so painful.” This statement dissolves Bang’s sense of competition and becomes the emotional foundation of the project. What follows is not simply an act of documentation, but an attempt to understand. With Hsien’s consent, Bang begins to photograph his brother’s life — his solitude, his surroundings, and the visible traces of survival.

Through the interplay of archival family photographs, documents, and newly produced images, Born from the Same Root becomes both an evolving personal archive and a meditation on kinship. The work asks how two lives, emerging from the same origin, can take such radically different paths — and whether the act of looking, and of photographing, can begin to bridge that distance.

Ultimately, the project resists resolution. It remains suspended between identification and distance, empathy and opacity. In doing so, it suggests that to look closely at another person is also to confront the limits of one’s own understanding.

What shapes the paths we take? What binds us to one another? And to what extent can we ever truly understand those closest to us?

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Born in 1999 in Taoyuan, Taiwan, Tsai Ting-Bang is a Taiwanese-Vietnamese artist whose practice is largely self-taught, shaped by independent studies in photography, art, performance, philosophy, and related fields. Working primarily with photography and photobooks, his work explores family history, identity, migration, and intimate relationships. Through long-term photographic projects, he seeks to reveal the subtle tensions and complexities hidden within seemingly ordinary realities.

His photographic project Mother and Father, which explores the relationship between his Taiwanese and Vietnamese parents, received the Photo Go Award in Taiwan in 2022. Auntie Jin Yun was selected for the 2023 Abnormal Portrait Group Exhibition in Taiwan, while Born from the Same Root was selected for the 2023 Jimei x Arles Handmade Photobook Award in China.

In 2024, Born from the Same Root received both the First PhotoBook Award at the Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards and the Singapore International Photography Festival Dummy Book Award.

In 2025, Shui Dang Dang – Aunt Jin Yun was published as a photobook and was awarded the Bronze Medal at the Hong Kong Photobook Festival. The project also received support from the Hasselblad Foundation Photo Book Grant.

In addition, Ting-Bang was awarded funding through Taiwan’s Youth Hundred Billion Project in 2025. He is currently focusing on the production of short films while actively working on several forthcoming book publications.

For more information please visit: 

Homepage: https://rootphotobook1174.wixsite.com/bang

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tsaitingbang/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tsai.ting.bang