2024.05.02 – 2024.05.26
Due to heavy rainstorm, the Photographer Sharing Session and the Opening will be postponed to 18 May 2024 (Saturday)
Photographer Sharing Session: 2024.5.18, Saturday, 14:30-16:00
Opening Reception: 2024.5.18, Saturday, 16:00-18:00
Curator: SO Hing Keung
Photographers: Mike Chan, Anson Cheng, Hillman Lai, Kit-yee Tong, Chi-Keung Tsui, Cody Wong, Tomas Wong
Venue: Lumenvisum | L2-02, JCCAC, 30 Pak Tin Street, Shek Kip Mei, Kowloon
Opening Hours： Tuesday to Sunday, 11:00-13:00, 14:00-18:00, Closed on Mondays (except Public Holiday)
Opening Reception & Artsit Sharing：
https://www.eventbrite.hk/e/opening-day-artist-sharing-session-tickets-890807939527
Plan your visit:
https://www.eventbrite.hk/e/impermanence-bw-tickets-890803646687
In a world where all things are impermanent, time forever flows, and yet with the press of a shutter, we delicately capture that moment. But what is really left on the photo? The scenery, the sentiments, memories, or reality itself? From the click of the shutter to the developing, fixing, filtering, and processing, the photographer and the captured image create an ever-growing distance. And within this detachment, it seems that it is in black and white where we distinguish what the photograph truly carries.Curated by Mr. SO Hing Keung and his students, Impermanence @ B/W will be held in May at Lumenvisum. It brings together amateur photographers and experienced students, all retracing the essence of photography using traditional black and white film. Amidst ruins, outskirts, the abandoned, and familiar scenes, each person’s vision is unique, yet they all intend to present it to the audience in its purest form.
Curatorial Statement
Hong Kong is an international metropolis with a fast-paced and tumultuous rhythm of life, which can be suffocating. I have a group of students who find solace in expressing their personal feelings through photography. They often enjoy wandering the streets, escaping the bustling city centre, and retreating to the outskirts or even exploring abandoned places in an attempt to capture the images in their minds. They have all taken courses at Lumenvisum and are skillful in photography techniques, particularly fond of traditional black and white film photography and the Straight Photography approach.
Straight Photography is a more direct expression that is conducive to interpreting the inner emotions of the photographer. Sometimes, there are objects and scenes that you cannot hold onto, but you desperately want a more tangible memory to preserve the emotions of that moment, to become a part of your life. By capturing the moment directly and truthfully, you can preserve it. However, paradoxically, this seems to be the fate of photography – a photograph only freezes the scene of that one particular moment onto the surface of a film. Yet, ironically, the world keeps changing, time keeps passing, and eventually things will disappear or change their original appearance and meaning. Photography immortalizes that specific moment and proves the existence of certain things, at the same time, preserving the photographer’s emotions and perspectives of that split second.
As time goes by, the photograph preserves the state of the photographer’s mind at the moment he presses the shutter. It reflects the depth of the photographer’s understanding and analysis of the scene with his emotions and perspective attached to the frozen image. Film photography is particularly suitable for this, allowing the filtration and sedimentation of the emotions of the moment. Black and white photography deepens the sense of detachment, past, and death. Is it the faint melancholy reflecting the emotions of that specific moment?
Film photography only captures the external scenes of the moment, hidden within the film’s emulsion until one day, when you develop it and reveal it to the world. This feeling is very interesting and meaningful. After sedimentation, one day, memories come flooding back, bringing forth latent images and returning the mind to the context of the shot. At this moment, I am reminded of the famous lines,
“People’s whereabouts are hard to trace. Yet peach blossoms still smile with grace.”
In the mundane world, as time changes and circumstances become complex, I simply hope to guide them back to the essence of photography!
SO Hing Keung
Spring 2024