Leaving on a Jet Plane: Final Images of Hong Kong by Photographers Who Have Emigrated Recently (despite clearly f**king loving Hong Kong) (Photo-essay)

Two years ago today, the final issue of Apple Daily came out.  Two years on, a number of its senior editors and executives are behind bars -- including its publisher, Jimmy Lai.  And while a good number of its former staffers are not behind bars, quite a few have left the media industry (and become such as taxi drivers) and still others have left Hong Kong.

Speaking of which: there's an exhibition currently on at Lumenvisum -- but which is scheduled to end tomorrow -- entitled Leaving on a Jet Plane: Final Images of Hong Kong by Photographers Who Have Emigrated Recently featuring work by at least one former Apple Daily photographer.  (My apologies for not having blogged about it earlier but I found out about it -- by way of an article about it by the Hong Kong Free Press -- only recently myself!)  

 

When reading about the exhibition, I was shocked to find that: it features works by not, say, two or five or 10 or even 20 but 31 -- yes, thirty-one! -- photographers who have left Hong Kong in recent years.  Also, that a number of them are names I recognise -- by way of such as photography credits in newspapers.  Seeing their work, it's clear that they are talented and really f**king love Hong Kong; so it is a loss and tells you quite a bit of the state of Hong Kong that they have decided to be part of the exodus from a place whose views they have shared via this exhibition -- views which can tear at one's heart...

 

I returned to the Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre (where

I had gone to check out another photo exhibition last year)

to view this particular photography show

 

View of the exhibition, with Tse Ming-chong's

On the Road in the foreground

 

Samson Cheung's series of photographs is entitled Home

 and documents what would have been an ordinary evening

at home in Hong Kong for his family (who now reside in Canada)

Shan Kwok's Until we meet again are photos of the 

backs of her parents who, unlike her, 

have remained in Hong Kong

 

Jimmy Wong's That Night in June

was taken at Admiralty on June 16th, 2019

 

Chan Kai-chun (aka MC)'s Everything is as Usual

documents students revisiting a site of trauma

-- specifically, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University

 

Look carefully and you can see the characters "ga yau" and 

"Hong Kong" etched on the brick pavement in Joe Lau's Origin

 

Winson Wong's work is untitled but, in the exhibition program, he -- 

who's moved to Taiwan -- stated for it that "We came from HONG KONG"

(and, yes, I choked up upon seeing those words and photo :S)