Wednesday, December 13, 2023

Paul Yeung, Dark Light, Current Plans, Hong Kong, 2019


A smart perforated postcard accordion by this award-winning Hong Kong based photographer and part-time professor of photojournalism and photography at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, who graduated with an MA in Image and Communication (Photography) from Goldsmiths College, London in 2011.

This work was created during the big 2019-2020 protests in Hong Kong over the government's introduction of a bill to amend the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance which would allow China to extradite citizens from Hong Kong to mainland. These were the largest series of demonstrations in the history of Hong Kong.

A statement from the artist accompanying this work situates the piece within Hong Kong's political climate from this period: 

"Created amidst the social turmoil of 2019, Dark Light conveys a world that seems strangely flamboyant and yet has somehow gone awry. Inverted colors forge an uncanny tension between the familiar and the alien, a place where fluttering candles come across as little daggers; the “negative” colors are also reminiscent of analogue photography. In the age of alternative facts, post-truths, and manipulated images, how do we tell what is true or not? How do we stay hopeful while navigating through the frustrations of the “new normal”?"

9 double-sided pages, individual pages 4.25" x 6.25" and when unfolded 4ft 8"






reverse side