‘Where are you from originally?’
As an immigrant, I get asked this more than I care for. Having spent two thirds of my life in England, I am still often considered an outsider.
I was born in the city of Hong Kong in 1977, 5 years before China wanted it back. Us Honkies have an identity that’s very different to the ones of China, after all, I sang ‘God Save our Queen’ as my national anthem at school. I always knew I was coming to live in England. My father studied here and dislikes the communists; he had always told me that when Hong Kong goes back to China in 1997, we would not be going back.
Go back he did. In fact, he never really left. I on the other hand, got sent here for school and I married and started a family here. Having grown up between three different cultures, one question is always at the back of my mind. How Chinese am I or indeed, who am I?
My father’s grandfather was a deckhand who came to Hong Kong from Shanghai after the fall of the Empire in 1911, lured by better job prospect in the relatively stable British colony. My mother’s family were big landlords in Southern China, they came to Hong Kong and probably escaped certain death at the hands of Mao’s advancing Communist armies. I am tracing back the history of my family in a bid to find out how two of the most influential people in history affected my family. Paying equal importance to new photographs, found photographs and writing, the work will reconnect me with the Hong Kong of the past through the recollection of my extended family, humanizing the political and social upheaval that brought my family to Hong Kong and eventually to the United Kingdom.
Presented as a visual journal for my daughters. It is my hope that when they are older and begin to question their own heritage, they will find answers to their questions as I did during the research and making of this project. Beyond that, I hope the project will not only speak to the millions of Chinese around the world who have been displaced from China, escaping war, famine and communism over the last 100 years but also to anyone who has gone through migration and displacement.
Awards
2011 Magenta Foundation, Flash Forward, Selected UK Winner
2010 Hey Hot Shot Ne Plus Ultras
2010 Troika/Format Exposure Award, Winner
2010 Magenta Foundation, Flash Forward, Selected UK Winner
2009 Photography.Book.Now Editorial Category Winner & 2nd runner-up
2009 Hey Hot Shot, 2009 1st Edition, Winner
2009 Leopold Godowsky Int. Colour Photography award, Nominee
2009 Joop Swart Masterclass, Nominee
2009 SFCP project competition, Finalist
2009 Review Santa Fe, Participant
2008 The Jerwood Photography Awards, Winner
2008 Lens Culture/Rhubarb Photo book Award, Winner
2008 AOP Open Award, Finalist
2007 Deutsche Bank Pyramid Award, Finalist
2006 British Journal of Photography/Nikon Endframe Award, Finalist
2005 8th Luis Valtuena Int. Humanitarian Photography Award, Winner
Monograph
2011 In Case it Rains in Heaven, Kehrer Verlag
Solo Exhibitions
2011 The Queen, The Chairman and I, Identity Art Gallery, Hong Kong
2011 In Case it Rains in Heaven, Kemistry Gallery, London, UK
2011 In Case it Rains in Heaven, Street Level, Glasgow, UK
2010 In Case it Rains in Heaven, Compton Verney, Warwickshire, UK
2010 In Case it Rains in Heaven, Voirie, Biel, Switzerland. (Bieler Fotoage)
2010 Memories, Dreams; Interrupted / In Case it Rains in Heaven, Photofusion, London, UK
2010 People’s Park/Farewell in Labrador, Lighthouse, Wolverhampton UK
Selected Group Exhibitions
2011 Open Salon, Galerie Huit, Arles, France
2011 For You, Uno Art Space, Stuttgart, Germany (2 person show)
2011 Wish you were here, The Little Black Gallery, London, UK
2011 Print Sales, The Photographers’ Gallery, P3 Ambika, London, UK
2011 22 Steps to the Sea, Format Festival, Derby, UK
2011 Photography and the Landscape, George and Jorgen, London, UK
2010 A Transient Life, Blindspot Gallery, Hong Kong
2010 Pieces of a Song, Host Gallery, London, UK
2010 2nd Singapore International Photography Festival, Lim Hak Tai Gallery and 2902 Gallery, Singapore
2010 Simulated Alternate Realities, 1A Space, Hong Kong
2010 Flash Forward 2010 exhibition, Flash Forward Festival, Toronto, Canada
2010 Format Festival Preview, The Front Room Gallery, London, UK
2010 Chroniques Hongkongaises, Diorama Rue Raspail, Arles, France
2009 Christmas Show, Little Black Gallery, Chelsea, London
2009 Fotofest Int. Discoveries II, Vine Street Studio, Houston, USA
2009 Hey! Hot Shot showcase, Jen Bekman Gallery, New York, USA
2009 Summer Exhibition, Crane Kalman Gallery, Brighton
2009 Summer Show, Host Gallery, London
2009 Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy, London
2009 152nd International Print Exhibition, Allen & Overy, London
2009 Jerwood Show, Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Aberystwyth, Wales
2009 Jerwood Show, Impressions Gallery, Bradford
2008 Jerwood Photography Awards Winners Exhibition 2008
2008 Jerwood Space, London
2008 AOP Best of the Awards Show, AOP Gallery, London
2008 Summer Show, Host Gallery, London
2008 The Butterfly Effect, 23rd Biannual ALNAP Meeting, Madrid, Spain
2007 Photo Meeting, Abbaye de Neumunster, Luxembourg
2007 Retrospective Exhibition, French Institute, Edinburgh
Education
2006-07 MA Photojournalism, London College of Communication
1997-01 BN (Hons) Bachelor of Nursing & (RHV) Health Visitor, Uni. of Liverpool