LIGHT



Finalist


Tang Kwong San, Yuen Nga Chi - Somewhere in Time

Tang Kwong San, Yuen Nga Chi
Biography

Tang Kwong San (b. 1992) was born in Dongguan, and he is currently based in Hong Kong. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art from RMIT University and the Mr. Jerry Kwan Scholarship in 2019. He explores the use of different media in his creative practice, including painting, drawing, photography and installation. Some of his artworks have been acquired by private collectors.

 

Yuen Nga Chi (b. 1994) was born in Hong Kong. She received a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Visual Arts from Hong Kong Baptist University in 2019. She employs photography as the main medium in her creative practice. She was shortlisted in the 6th Singapore International Photography Festival Photobook Open Call in 2018 and awarded the WMA Young Talent Award in 2019 (Graduation Exhibition of the Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University).

 

Tang Kwong San, Yuen Nga Chi
Project Statement

Somewhere in Time

A ray of light pierces into a withered space, 
reviving scenes that will soon vanish.

In the 1950s, public phone booths were installed across Hong Kong by the British Hong Kong Government. As technological advancements have provided city-wide network coverage, the gleams of smartphone screens are seen flitting in the streets. Scattered across the city are disused phone booths that are about one square metre in size, with broken lightboxes inside. 

We wrapped a disused booth in a reflective cover, and added a coin from the colonial era with a hole drilled in it, turning the booth into a pinhole darkroom. Through the inverted images inside the booth, the viewer shuttles back and forth between different landmarks before and after the handover, tracing the endlessly shifting political relationship between ‘deconstruct’ and ‘construction’ in the city. 

A discarded phone booth waiting to be dismantled, 
a memento of the Queen still being circulated today.