Chris Wong
Chris Wong
Now & Then
Self Published
Hardcover
56 pages
Edition of 400
2019
About the Book:
A historic building is a legend of one’s own time. A trace of it is left and gets exposed on an instant photo. Each frame is a monument to be discovered and preserved.
These architectural heritage sites live through time and have now become a part of our everyday life in Hong Kong. Sometimes, we slow down, in awe of the aesthetic wonders of architecture defined by detailed space planning, highly skilled craft and creative structural design. Occidental colonial-style buildings put down roots in the Pearl of the Orient. Each place, may it be a barracks, a court house or a church, exudes its own lasting charm.
Book review by Dana Stirling |
In “Now & Then” artist Chris Wong documents westerner styled colonial-era architecture in Hong Kong. Architecture always has an interesting way of telling not only history and time but also the story of the place they are grounded to. Buildings, homes, stone and concrete are artifacts left behind by societies and people who occupied these places through the years, generations and even centuries. When I think of photography and indexing the world we live in through the exploration of Architecture, I often think of Eugène Atget who captured the streets of France in such a way that I, when looking at these images years after they were taken and in a completely different continent, can still not only enjoy and relate to them but learn about how people lived, how their environment felt and the history that was lost and has changed since they were taken.
They always say photography is some sort of death. That we capture something that will be be again, documenting a fraction of time that is no longer there and will never be there again. I think that in this project, all of these notions come to play. Chris chose to use instant polaroid’s for this project, which might be the definition of what I wrote above – the physical capture of a fleeting moment, a one-of-a-kind moment and a place and time that are forever enclosed in this square frame. The use of “older” technology for making photos is the same juxtaposition that the work itself explores – the now and then. The preset and the past, what we see now and what is no longer there.
Just like the buildings, the polaroid is a one-off image – it is always unique, always precious and once it is no longer there or destroyed you could never really never replicate it.
I think the great thing about the images and the use of this camera is that it makes the images feel almost timeless – they have a great light effect on them, painting the images and buildings in hues that are only captured because of the camera and the film, creating a new visual that combines the real and the concrete object to the eye of the photographer, the art and the self-expression.
I think a big part of the work is this duality of cultures, how things can both coexist in harmony but can also be a reminder of how we as humans have taken apart, moved, changed, destroyed, built and modified the environment we live in today. It can be a good reminder or a bad one for our past actions, how things that happened years ago can still affect us to today and how it changed not only out culture but our actual scenery and cities.
Many of us find ourselves growing up in a fusion of cultures, if it’s because of our family heritage, the country we are born in, immigration and much more. We are not only influenced by these fusions, but they are also embedded in us and in many cases create a conflict within us. Our global world is growing closer every day, we strive to keep traditions and cultures pure and true to their roots, but the globalization of modern technology is bridging gaps and leaving us all exposed to it’s aftermath. I think it is interesting to see these bridges in this project – how western artifacts are embedded and perceived within the Hong Long city scape. It feels that Chris has a genuine curiosity to his surroundings and these buildings, a need to explore and understand what it is and why it is there. The book has a charming quality to it while using photography to capture these beautiful abstracts of what life and city is in the eyes of the artist.
Just like Eugène Atget this book is an index of Hong Kong at the time and year they were documented. This is the city as of this moment, and the book is a testimony for what we have now. Maybe in the future another artist will make the “Now and Then” of the city based on this imagery, as history is currently happening and we are awaiting the now, but living the then.
If you enjoy photography and architecture I think this book would be a great addition to your book library.
