Q: 為什麼會選擇新界東北部拍攝？
A: Initially, I was drawn to the landscapes up North that seemed vastly different from the extreme urban density in Hong Kong Island and Kowloon. At first glance, the Northern region feels both agrarian and industrial in nature, which reflects the agricultural activities that have existed here for centuries and the logistical pressures due to its close proximity to Shenzhen across the border. With ongoing plans to develop many parts of the rural North into a “Northern Metropolis”, I wanted to document the changing landscape of the North and ask questions about the nature of development and our relationship with land.
I started going up North in early 2021 most of my weekends. What started as an inquiry into Hong Kong’s land development would eventually reveal other events such as the eviction and demolition of villages to make way for new development, finding meaning from the objects which I’ve scavenged from the rubble of demolished villages, and encounters with overlooked myths and neglected histories beyond the colonial gaze. They ask broader themes about the notion of territory and the meaning of time, memory, home and land in a city that is ever changing.
This also led me to think about the huge disparity between the way Hong Kong is often portrayed and its actual reality. Hong Kong’s extreme urban density is well represented in photography, but this urban density only consists of a tiny fraction of Hong Kong’s actual land use. Much of Hong Kong’s land consists of country parks, villages, brownfield sites, or farming fields - but not the kind of images that are often represented such as skyscrapers crowding around Victoria Harbour or the dense streets of Kowloon or Central, which altogether reinforces the myth about Hong Kong as a crowded city that lacks land.
As an image maker and architect, I’ve always wondered about this disparity in representation and wanted to look at this “other” side of Hong Kong that in turn shapes its extreme density. Everything I’ve photographed for this series attempts to show this neglected side, revealing subject matters beyond the colonial gaze about Hong Kong.
|
