BETEL NUT, UNSEEN
PIETRO ANSALDI
ONLINE VERSION: HTTPS://ISSUU.COM/ANSAPETER/DOCS/BETEL_NUT_UNSEEN PHO720 INFORMING CONTEXTS APRIL
BETEL NUT, UNSEEN
PIETRO ANSALDI
STATEMENT OF INTENT:
This project began from a place of curiosity. I had often seen images of Taiwan’s betel nut stalls usually framed through cliché, spectacle, or exoticism but I never truly understood them. I wanted to look closer. The industry is frequently reduced to a narrow image: women in glass boxes, dressed to attract, selling to passing drivers. I was interested in what exists beyond that surface. Who are these women, really? And how do they navigate a space shaped by both tradition and performance?
As a European male photographer and an outsider, I was aware of the limitations that come with my gaze. I didn’t want to repeat the same visual narratives that have long defined these women. I approached the project slowly, with time and care, building trust, listening first, and allowing the images to carry questions rather than offer fixed conclusions.
The women I met were thoughtful, confident, and proud of their work. Some still wear provocative clothing; others don’t. Some work in brightly lit stalls with mirrored glass; others in quieter, older roadside setups. Many of them use social media to promote themselves — actively shaping how they are seen, in ways not so different from other industries focused on self branding. And yet, public perception remains stuck in a past that is fading. Even the packaging still features outdated, hypersexualized photos — images that belong more to the 1980s than to today’s reality.
Rather than document this industry in a literal or journalistic way, I chose a more symbolic visual language. I removed color to quiet the image and shift focus toward the subject’s presence. I blurred and folded prints — gestures that interrupt clarity and slow down the act of looking. The folds recall how betel nut is wrapped before it’s handed over: a small, intimate gesture of care. They suggest that not everything needs to be fully exposed in order to be seen.
In one of the final images, the same woman appears twice inside her glass stall — once in casual clothes, once in her working outfit. It’s not a performance and its opposite. It’s a way to show how both roles coexist, not as contradiction, but as complexity.
This project is not about judgment or explanation. It’s about offering space. A different way of seeing. One that holds, rather than defines.
WHAT IS FOLDED IS NOT HIDDEN, BUT HELD.
PHO720
BETEL NUT, UNSEEN
PIETRO ANSALDI