【Information】
Date: 2021.7.10 至 2021.8.8
Sharing Session: 2021.7.10, 3:00pm – 4:30pm
Opening Reception: 2021.7.10, 4:30pm – 6:00pm
Venue: Lumenvisum｜L2-02, Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre, 30 Pak Tin Street, Shek Kip Mei, Kowloon, Hong Kong
About Artist Vincent Yu Wai Kin 余偉建
Born and raised in Hong Kong, Vincent Yu has worked as a photojournalist covering major news events across the Asia-Pacific region since 1985. As a close observer of Hong Kong’s rapid development, Yu has acquired a special sensitivity towards its ever-changing cityscape. In particular, he is interested in documenting disappearing heritage and architecture as well as communities affected by these changes.
His works have been recognized by many honours, including the 2004 National Headliner Awards, 2010 World Press Photo Awards 3rd Prize “People in the News” singles category, 2013 Picture of the Year Awards, Award of Excellence “ Photographer of the Year “ and numerous Hong Kong Press Photographers Association Annual Awards. His works are collected by the Hong Kong Heritage Museum.
安 On
‘On’, seems to be one of the words in the name of a panda ambassador.
It, and members of its kind,
have distinctive black and white.
Yet they are close to extinction.
People say,
they are living fossils, loaded with history.
But is black and white the color of history?
Who is in charge of memory?
When remembering is a crime, can memory stay intact?
Or, memory has taken control of life with new information and internet technologies.
From 2020 to 2021,
a shade of green laid seige to the city of Victoria.
In the system it articulated, people
surrendered the record of their traces
for the peace of mind to hang around,
so that dancing parties can go on, and horse racing can continue.
But the consciousness of the body,
and the virtue of the soul,
under the advent of techno-capitalism,
will eventually be completely swallowed by 0 and 1,
when big data becomes
the secret police of 1984.
非 Fei
The binary of black and white
has long buried under the gravestone named modernity.
Normality and abnormality,
in the days of pandemics
have their boundaries blurred,
like the people’s faces,
hidden behind masks
as a result of the omnipresent tracking and surveillance
and the fear that comes with it.
The freedom of movement,
disappeared in 2019.
A collective
dissolved,
yet reborn in the mirror,
albeit in the form of ERROR such as 404 or “mosaics”
in its re-presentation.
ERROR is not just a symbol
or a vehicle of meaning.
It is the name of the Times.
A portraiture of the day.
(Photo)mosaic –
simultaneously functions as a vehicle of, and a resistant to, power.
Like pharmakon, it’s both curative and poisonous.
他 Ta
Together they were
carrying torches and umbrellas;
vast and mighty,
lighting up the dark cave.
But walls of the cave were a green screen.
Those who were absent could become present.
Those who were actually present could turn into disappearance.
Light bearers from outside Plato’s cave
became chained prisoners facing the wall.
The virtual and the real is swapped.
But the cave into which light entered served as a camera obscura.
Those who once existed,
even though being erased or disappeared;
in the long current of history
remain immortal.
命 Ming
A community of shared destiny
coalesced through imagining and shouldering of other’s suffering and pain.
In one summer,
two million bare lives,
under the scorching sun
An Fei Ta Ming
They breathed together, shared the same destiny,
to pursue the infinite with the finite
A photo of a sea of people under a held fist
put the time and space of Hong Kong in 2019 and Prague in 1968
and their fate
in parallel,
despite of the absence of The Watch on the wrist.
Yet photography itself is time.
Even though civilization is collapsing,
memory is interrupted by digitization,
it is the evidence of “that-has-been”.
Photography is the embryo of mnemotechnics,
When the grammar of (digitized) images are deconstructed,
reality is challenged and blurred;
through aletheia, the memory of justice (“dike”)
is reborn.
Transindividuation across time and space
in such alternate of the virtual and the real
is made possible.
Written by curator, Carol CHOW Pui Ha, Independent curator and researcher on image culture and identity isssue. Previous curatorial projects included: Voice of Tacitness: Asian Women Photography; A Room with a View: Her-stories-Hong Kong through the Lens of Six Female Artists; Photography as Method; The Wall 2019; Who Cares: Mainland Female Immigrants Photovoice Exhibition