‘Hong Kong Today’ is a group exhibition of the contemporary photographers Romain Jacquet-Lagrèze, Kwan Kam Cheong and Nick Poon. All three artists scan Hong Kong’s intriguing cityscape albeit each with a very different outcome. Titled as ‘Hong Kong Today’ this exhibition reveals obscure and unseen sides of Hong Kong, and express both the charm and gloom of this metropolitan city.
Romain Jacquet-Lagrèze gained world-wide attention from his work Vertical Horizon in 2012. Originally from France, he was stunned by Hong Kong’s architectural complexity. Compared to many low rise places in Europe, Hong Kong has an intense 3-D structure. Businesses and residential places are so fiercely built on top of each other, each lift in fact would deserve its own a street-name. Romain points at this unique phenomenon by shooting urban sceneries bottom up. In his latest series Wild Concrete, he focuses on nature sprouting from the most incongruous places of our dense urban environment. For over a year Romain hunted the city for these resilient bits of nature that were attempting to regain the city.
Kwan Kam Cheong, the overall champion of 1st Hong Kong Photo Book Awards, loves exploring the dark side of Hong Kong; Kowloon in the deepest of night. What originally started as a way to pass time between the end of his night shift and the arrival of the first day bus, became an obsession for young Kwan. In his work we encounter the creatures of night; the prostitutes, junkies, rats and moths captured with grainy black and white images.
Nick Poon was awarded the champion of 2nd Hong Kong Photo Book Awards. Unlike his occupation working in the advertising industry, the philosophy of his photography is to document how ordinary people are surviving in this unusual world. In this particular project, he zooms in to the impossible tiny shops and workplaces that provide the bread and butter for so many people in Hong Kong. Nick used nothing more than his iPhone to create this body of work.
