“This exhibition is about my mother Susan, a third-generation Chinese Indonesian born in Pontianak in 1962. It was quite precarious to be a Chinese in Indonesia when she was growing up. The government pursued a policy of assimilation and closed down Chinese schools. Her family was also forced to relocate from the countryside to Jakarta. In 1990, Susan married a local Hong Kong (HK) fisherman whom she met through a matchmaker. Together, they had two daughters before her passing in 2015. A decade has passed before the opening of this exhibition.

During the 1980s and the 1990s, many Indonesian Chinese women saw HK as a dreamland. They believed that a transnational marriage with a HK man would allow them to move up the social ladder and escape from familial and societal issues back home. However, these relationships often involved underprivileged men in HK and might not turn out to be what they had imagined.

A few years back, I started to learn the skills for making Canton porcelain. As a kind of chinaware made primarily for export to Europe and the United States, Canton porcelain symbolised the Chinese desire for a better life and reflected the Western fantasies of an Oriental paradise. In my work, I appropriate the forms and techniques of Canton porcelain by reinterpreting the traditional symbols of its iconography and juxtaposing them with my collection of family photographs. In this way, I draw a parallel between these Western fantasies of the Orient and the Southeast Asian Chinese women’s imaginations of HK and China.

Artist Sharing Session: 2025.2.15, Saturday, 14:30

Opening Reception: 2025.3.23, Saturday, 16:30

Gallery address: L2-02, JCCAC, 30 Pak Tin Street, Shek Kip Mei, Kowloon

As a heteronormative woman with a disability who has also been diagnosed with a mental illness, Kathleen Lo embarked on a photography project within the transgender community. She established connections with the transgender community through photography, learning about their knowledge and culture. She documented the life journeys of transgender individuals through both photography and interviews. Using photography as her methodology, Kathleen delved deeply into the challenges trans-gender individuals face with binary gendered restrooms, their personal bodily choices and gender expressions, their participation in identity politics, and the increasing issue of suicide among young people in marginalized communities under social stigma. 

Transgender gender dysphoria cannot be equal to mental illness, but the mental stress that transgender people has been shouldering definitely needs the society’s understanding and attention. 

This series of photographs not only captures the cultural expressions of the trans-gender community and the rigid binary social system, but also intertwines with Kathleen’s personal spiritual experiences that contributed to her own mental illness diagnosis stigma. The foreign spaces she experienced alone may never be validated in this world; yet, who can definitively deny the countless possibilities among millions of living beings? 

In this world, life is inherently diverse and varied. Inside and outside the lens, who can truly be deemed “normal”? 

Artist Guided Tour: 18th January, 2025 (Saturday) 16:00

Venue address: Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre, L2-02, 30 Pak Tin St, Shek Kip Mei

The World Press Photo Foundation, Consulate General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Hong Kong & Macao SAR and Lumenvisum in Hong Kong present “Resilience - Stories of Women Inspiring Change”. The exhibition will be on display at Lumenvisum in Hong Kong JCCAC staring from 14 November. This special photo exhibition showcases a selection of stories, awarded in the World Press Photo Contests from 2000 to 2021, that highlight the resilience and challenges of women, girls and communities around the world.

Venue address: L2-02, Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre 30 Pak Tin Street Shek Kip Mei

MM Yu has a fine arts degree and a successful career in painting; at the same time, she is a compulsive photographer, obsessed with the camera since her primary school days. In school, Yu was a student of the late Roberto Chabet who was seen as one of the pillars of Philippine conceptualism, but she also harboured dreams of being a photojournalist in her younger years. More so than some of the career photographers who wait patiently for assignments, Yu is always seen out and about with her camera, snapping away at things that catch her eyes or trigger her memories, just like a street or documentary photographer. Since 1997, Yu has been taking photographs to “remember and grasp what has become unreachable”. However, her photographs are most often seen in the context of contemporary art, rather than editorial work. Over the years, Yu’s photographs have become her collated thoughts and memories, which she trawls and categorises for her different exhibitions in photography. The same photographs reappear in different contexts, taking on new connotations. When photography becomes such an obsession, it inevitably takes an autobiographical slant, marking Yu’s presence at a particular time and place. 

Curator: Zhuang Wubin

Venue address: L2-02, JCCAC, 30 Pak Tin Street, Shek Kip Mei, Kowloon  

This 2 session workshop will take participants through the fundamentals of presenting their works in an exhibition to create a compelling narrative. Participants will engage in conversations around conceptualising an exhibition, space, layout, materials and programmes. Participants will put these ideas into practice by working on and presenting an exhibition plan for their existing projects.

Rundown

19:00 – 19:30  Participants to work on their assignment / Consultation with facilitator

19:30 – 21:00  Group review & peer feedback

21:00 – 22:00  Moving forward: Engaging the community & Importance of exhibition programmes

22:00 – 22:30  Tidying up

Deposit: HKD 300*

*Please note that this workshop is open to confirmed participants only. Participants who have received email confirmation must settle the participation fee within the deadline. The admin fee charged by Eventbrite shall be borne by participants. Tickets are non-transferable.

*Refundable only upon attendance. The admin fee charged by Eventbrite shall be borne by participants. Absentees are not allowed for any refunds.

Registration link Click here

23.10 - 24.10.2023

19:00 - 22:00 Each day

Venue address: L2-02, JCCAC, 30 Pak Tin Street, Shek Kip Mei, Kowloon

Migrant domestic worker is one of the major migrant working populations in Hong Kong. They are far away from their homeland, and come to an unknown city with many challenges and difficulties, but they are still living and fighting for future with resilience.

Art photographer Gretchen SO is interested about the life of domestic workers during their leisure time. After working, what would they do in their holiday?

With a camera, SO walked around many locations where the migrant domestic workers gather, joining their activities to understand their life. The exhibition is a picture of how the migrant domestic worker live their life in a world that full of limitation: they dress up to welcome weekends’ gathering in a park, to learn new skills for at the corner of a footbridge, to celebrate wedding on the rooftop…… those numerous ordinary moments are evidence that we, the Hong Kong people, are all living under the same sky.

A diversified community is based on respecting the value of existence of different people, and it comes from the understanding of people. The migrant domestic workers are not only worker, but they are also people living in the society working hard for dreams and future. Lumenvisum presents, “Hidden Narratives: Portraits of Resilience in Hong Kong’s Migrant Domestic Helper Community”, exhibits a series of photographs of migrant domestic workers’ portraits by artist Gretchen SO, illustrating the life of Hong Kong migrant domestic worker, who live together with all Hong Kong people.

Gallery address: L2-02, Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre, 30 Pak Tin Street, Shek Kip Mei, Kowloon

“Photography in Southeast Asia” series is back again after a difficult time in the past few years. Collaborating with ZHUANG Wubin, this year we invited Donna Chiu to participate in the 4th “Photography in Southeast Asia” Series in Lumenvisum. Born in Hong Kong, Chiu moved to Singapore in 1996. As an immigrant with distant relationship with her family, it has been a long and arduous process to build a sense of “home”. In this exhibition, she tries to understand and express her own experiences and emotions through her art-making, and to explore the possibilities in destiny of life.

Donna Chiu is a visual artist. She said she came from a diasporic family. Not only because she and her family do not always stay together, it also reflects her personal experience of moving to Singapore in her early years. Chiu’s practice focuses mainly on painting and photography, "I like to experiment with texture, which gives me the feeling of layering my different experiences and emotions. The photographic images in this exhibition mark specific incidents in our diasporic journeys.”

The "Photography in Southeast Asia" of Lumenvisum has been postponed because of tightened departure and arrival policies due to the epidemic in the past few years. As ordinary people, in the face of sudden changes in life, we may feel helpless sometimes, realising that nothing much we can do in fact. How to face the helplessness and uneasiness that similar to the feelings that Chiu and her family faced during their diasporic journeys, it might be the lesson of all of us.

Gallery address: L2-02, Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre, 30 Pak Tin Street, Shek Kip Mei, Kowloon

In the satirical novella The True Story of Ah Q, Lu Xun criticises Ah Q’s “spiritual victory” as a method of self-comforting. However, to artist Chan Ho Wang, Ah Q is not merely a pathetic, laughable character, but a tragic figure who attempts to fight against harsh society with “spiritual anaesthesia”. The title of this exhibition references Ah Q’s story, while Chan offers a playful yet serious tune to rethink Ah Q’s helplessness. He sheds light on the relationship between emotional labour and exploitation, reimagining how Ah Q faces mental oppression amid our contemporary society, attempting to subvert our linear imagination of “spiritual victory”. 

Invisible, unaccounted, and undervalued labour and contribution (largely performed by women) are ubiquitous, spanning the domestic space and the work field. The imbalance between contribution and reward/value, as well as the rampant exploitation within and beyond the institution have become the driving forces that keep the capitalist society afloat. Self-exploitation eventually saps the will and spirit, while emotional labour is the most marginalised existence. When we mock every Ah Q trying to laugh it off and make sense of the oppression that they face, we seem to ignore the systemic collapse and exploitation behind, putting the blame on people who are unable to take full control of their lives.

Opening Reception:                
2023.01.14, Saturday, 4:30pm

Artist Sharing:
2023.2.19, Sunday, 2:30pm

Gallery address: L2-02, Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre, 30 Pak Tin Street, Shek Kip Mei, Kowloon

Curator’s message

Paul YEUNG

In recent years, the social upheaval and the Covid-19 pandemic have caused significant disruption to young people’s studies. For any students, the past few years have been full of twists and turns, both in terms of their studies and life experiences. They have experienced feelings of insecurity, loss, alienation, fear, confusion, shame, distress, and above all, loneliness, transforming a once familiar city into a place where even mere survival seemed at stake.

The young artists participating in this year’s joint exhibition are a beacon of light in these challenging times. During a period of significant upheaval and social confinement, they have continued to produce outstanding works of art, using a range of techniques to explore topics such as their own emotions, friends and family, and the local community. Through their work, they demonstrate that the young generation of today is more resilient than many people may think: despite the significant disruptions to their lives, they are still able to forge their own path – by no means an easy task in today’s challenging times.

Noted with thanks is Lumenvisum’s fourth joint exhibition of young artists. The exhibition aims to bring outstanding works of art by college and university graduates to a wider audience, and provides a platform for young artists to exchange ideas and showcase their works.

Venue address: L2-02, Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre 30 Pak Tin Street Shek Kip Mei, KOW

“Haunting is historical, to be sure, but it is not dated,” Jacques Derrida wrote in 1993, in response to the End of History, “the witnesses of history fear and hope for a return.” Or, fear of the destined eternal return, as he believes that ghosts never die and that they are a part of the future. The Algerian Jewish philosopher coined hauntology in Spectres de Marx: “To haunt does not mean to be present, and it is necessary to introduce haunting into the very construction of a concept.”

After decades of drifting, Marx’s spectres eventually arrive at the other end of history – hovering over Victoria Harbour, as the senior officials celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Hong Kong Handover. History is looping spirally, upwards or downwards, with extreme velocity. 

The British ghosts of Mark Fisher are coming back too, in spatiality and temporality, to take vengeance for the cancellation of the future. The Goldsmiths’ teacher reactivates Derrida’s hauntology into two trajectories: the no longer and the not yet. The no longer remains effective as a virtuality (a destined pattern); for the yet to happen/born but already dead – the unfulfilled promise of lost futures, this unnameable thing haunts the present and arrives early in the form of revenants. 

For Hangover Haunted & their Lost Futures, photographic imagery intervenes to trigger a ‘spectral (re)turn’ of apparition. Adopted hauntology is localized as the triangular portal or app interface. The exhibition is conceptualized into three channelling. 

Gallery address: L2-02, JCCAC, 30 Pak Tin Street, Shek Kip Mei, Kowloon

Lumenvisum presents the 13th New Light Young Artists Exhibition – Exile to the Red Planet, the first Solo Exhibition by Caleb FUNG. Fung uses images to record stonewall tree in Hong Kong. By using photography, Fung tries to rewrite the fate of a Banyan tree that would be removed. Fung’s work combines image technology, traditional and classical photography methods with his observation and imagination, putting his thought of fate and hope in his images.

Fung photographed different stonewall trees in Hong Kong. One of them is meaningful to him, because it is planted beside his home, and have grown together with Fung many years. However, the Banyan tree have been growing on a slope, costing an expensive maintenance fee every year. Although the tree was assessed as healthy, with the support of the majority of the residents, the Banyan tree would face its fate of being removed.

In the pass, Banyan tree were able to grow on the wall, and the roots could grow between the gaps of stone bricks. Fung used black and white images to photograph stonewall trees, highlighting their tenacious vitality.

Opening Reception:                
2022.6.25, Saturday, 3:00pm

Artist Talk:
2022.7.2, Saturday, 3:00pm

Guest speakers:
Caleb Samuel FUNG (New Light XIII artist)
LEE Wing-Ki (Curator, artist-researcher-curator)
SO Kwok-yin (Chief Executive of the Conservancy Association)

Gallery address: L2-02, Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre, 30 Pak Tin Street, Shek Kip Mei, Kowloon

Exploring time and story in photography, “Transmigration” by Carol Lee Mei Kuen & Lau Chi Chung

If the moment of photographing represents the death of time, where is the time located when the photograph is being seen?

This year, Lumenvisum invited Artists Carol Lee Mei Kuen & Lau Chi Chung to participate in the 12th Artist & Photographer Conversation series. They have exchanged their insight on photography from different perspectives, extended our understanding of photography. In the exhibition, Carol creates works with time and light as concepts, by using objects and images to explore the relationship between nature and history. Lau used camera as his creative tool, imagining photograph as an entrance of a different dimension, instead of an objective reality only.

Time keeps going forward, while photograph freezes a certain moment of time. How the “transmigration” exists between the conversation and creation of Lee and Lau?

Artist Sharing: 05.07 3:00pm

Opening Reception: 05.07 4:30pm

Gallery address: L2-02, Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre, 30 Pak Tin Street, Shek Kip Mei, Kowloon

Water is the principal element of all living organisms. It forms the hydrosphere of the earth and connects all continents. Civilizations grew up around it; and to most ancient cultures, water was the symbol of life par excellence.

Andreas Müller-Pohle has been dealing with the topic of water for twenty years. His first major project, The Danube River Project from 2005, is a portrait of Europe’s most important river photographed from the perspective of the water, half below, half above the surface. The second project, Hong Kong Waters, was created five years later, following the concept of the divided view to present a comprehensive panorama of the city. Finally, in 2017, he completed a third work in this style, this time about the river landscape of Kaunas, a city in Lithuania.

Besides photography, sound and especially video are the artist’s most important media. In addition to several video works created in Hong Kong – including Coasting and Shing Mun River – he devoted himself to a variety of waterscapes in other countries, such as Bali, the Philippines, and most recently France. A selection from these video works is now on view for the first time at Lumenvisum under the title Studies on Water and forms the complement to the second larger thematic complex on which the artist has been working for several years, Studies on Traffic.

Gallery address: L2-02, Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre

Lumenvisum presents you: “Non-place” and “The Place”: KO Chi-Keung in Conversation with TANG Ying Chi, in October 2021. Curated by scholar ZENG Hong, the photographs by KO Chi-Keung, and works on canvas with mixed media by TANG Ying Chi, were put together to have conversation, and let the viewer to examine the relationship between subject and space.

Gallery address: L2-02, JCCAC, 30 Pak Tin Street, Shek Kip Mei, Kowloon

Lumenvisum presents you: "0500 - 0700" A Solo Exhibition By Kit Yee Tong, exhibiting a series photographs of Hong Kong landscapes by the photographer. Mao Hour is one of the 12-time units in ancient China, representing 05:00 to 07:00 nowadays. During that period, the sun rises, and the dark goes away, notifying everyone that a new day is coming. Kit-yee took a series of photographs when the sun just came out, when most people were still in bed. The morning sun is shining the places where had made Hongkongers hurt, puzzled, and feared.

The rapidly changing society in Hong Kong has made Kit-yee felt more and more unfamiliar to the place where she was born and raised. People are out of breath because of the new order enforcing in the society. She can only find peace during dark night and early morning. These photographs were taken with heavy feelings of the photographer from 2016 to 2021, capturing the familiar places and monuments or landmarks with her detached perspective, rethinking their meaning in the pass, and their value in present.

There is a sense of "awakening" in the quiet spaces captured in "0500 - 0700". It reminds people that waking up is a destiny. She hopes Hong Kong will see the ray of light in future, and we shall never lose our hope. Let us invite you to visit this exhibition, to emerge into the light of Mao Hour "0500-0700".

Artist talk: 2021.9.18（Sat）2:30pm - 4:00pm

Opening: 2021.9.18（Sat）4:00pm - 6:00pm

Registration

Gallery address: L2-02, Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre, 30 Pak Tin Street, Shek Kip Mei, Kowloon

"To envision all the answers and possibilities, is surely the objective and meaning of this project."-anothermountainman

Visual creator anothermountainman (Stanley Wong) will hold an exhibition in Lumenvisum this August. A hundred and fifty thousand street photographs, took by anothermountainman in the past forty years, will be presented in different ways by four curators: Patrick Lee, Lau Ching-ping, Jimmy Lee, and Sharon Lee.

The personalities are showed among those photographs. This is a process for anothermountainman to know himself, and lead to an answer with full of possibilities.

His old and new friends, the four curators will present the works in the square exhibition area of Lumenvisum. This exhibition highlights the uniqueness of curators, and showing integrity of anothermountainman and curators, 4 views on 1 view. anothermountainman turns this solo exhibition for ‘re-views’.

Venue address: Lumenvisum, L2-02, Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre, 30 Pak Tin Street, Shek Kip Mei, Kowloon