My sustained investigation has pivoted from documenting the 2nd Umbrella Movement in HK (image1) to creating photomontages (images 3 and 12) that contextualize China's complex political challenges, ranging from discordant national identities to social inequality. The thread that weaves this body of work together is Involution - an anthropological concept that has lately become an umbrella term for unhappiness in China. Frustrations over cut-throat competitions in higher education and the hopelessness that Hong Kongers feel for their futures all feed into this obscure word, thus this inquiry.

Image 3 uses photos that I took at Hong Kong International Airport as a foundation and experiments with a methodology for creating digital collages. Image12 builds upon the techniques that I've learned, taking advantage of better blending, more precise mask-making, and subtler layering processes to create one cohesive piece. Image12 also incorporates and improves upon ideas and symbols from previous work. The frost boy from Image9, the flag made out of the meme from Image7, and car trails from Image10 take the central stage in the bottom, middle, and top portion of the collage, respectively.

Selected Works

Photojournalism

As a photographer, I’ve long subscribed to the aesthetic doctrine of “l’art pour l’art.” Through this body of work, however, I wish to present truthfully what I saw at the frontlines of the 2nd Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong so that the viewers can interpret the “underlying truth” for themselves.

These photos were taken at Hong Kong International Airport on August 11, 2019. Civil unrests had initially broken out over the summer in opposition to the Lam-led government and a controversial extradition bill. This, however, is just a tip of the iceberg. Like its predecessor, this wave of protests is, at its core, a fight for an identity that has found itself in increasing peril as a growing China seeks to challenge Western dominance.

Most of the protesters that I spoke to self-identified as Hong Kongese, not Chinese. In fact, my initial use of Mandarin drew their hostility. This is understandable given that, unlike in 2014, the stakes are much higher this time. What these people stand to lose is the special status that the city has enjoyed as China’s bridge with the West and the legal protection of the common law system in place since the colonial days that underpins the “Hong Kongness” of Hong Kong: its autonomy and relatively higher degree of freedom.

This is one interpretation of the “truth” that is particularly popular with the Hong Kong youth – those whose preferred social media is snapchat, WhatsApp, or Facebook as opposed to WeChat not just because the “great firewall” does not apply to Hong Kong. A facet of the truth that is often omitted is that Hong Kong’s identity is highly generational. While I was there, I encountered more than one WeChat-using, mandarin-speaking middle age cab drivers who complained about how the “immature” college kids are ruining their lives and destroying the city. Indeed, we can’t forget that there are those for whom the vague promise of democracy does not register as prominently as material considerations and stability. Their identities and voices also matter in this discourse.

I see photography as a powerful tool to combat the rampant growth of biased reporting in Western and Chinese media that only furthers the divide created by inflammatory rhetoric and preexisting political differences. For well over 100 years, the Fragrant Harbor has acted as a weathervane of changing relations between the China and the West. It still does today.

Sports Photography