'When you walk down the street you see many beautiful women smiling down at you from posters or magazine advertisements,' she says. 'It makes you think you should look as appealing as them, but you don't. I don't want my portraits to fit into that commercial-driven expectation of women.'

Cheung's portraits of women at work are part of a cultural exchange project between Hong Kong, Britain and Ireland called If Hong Kong, A Woman/Traveller.

It's been organised by local arts organisation 1a Space, and sponsored by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council. Eight local female artists have been invited to express their thoughts about their identity through photo-graphy, video, paper collage and fabric art.

The exhibition accompanies a series of academic talks on post-feminism and 'historical perspectives in international feminist art theory, history and practice'.

Cheung says she asked her subjects about their 'experience with the colour black. I chose this question because there's too much visual pollution in Hong Kong. This simple question brings out the many levels and layers of people's perception and imagination on their lives, working environment and experiences.

'They all started talking about something intimate about themselves - even though I'm a stranger,' she says.

The curator of the project, Ivy Ma King-chu, says the exhibition aims to raise awareness of local art scene and women's role in it - although it's not a feminist campaign.

'The artists I invited are not what we commonly recognise as feminist artists,' says Ma, who is also manager of 1a Space. 'They're not particularly interested in gender issues, either.

'What I want is to bring in discussions about the relationship between women and art through these artists' experience.'

Pauline Lam Yuk-lin, who has been a professional artist for more than 10 years, photographs the results of so-called patch tests on her body as a way of exploring the relationship between a woman and the environment.

'In these tests, the bodily areas exposed to irritants, such as nickel and sulphate, went severely crimson,' she says. 'Then, I took photos of what happened.'

Lam, who says she likes to work on masculine-sounding materials such as concrete and copper came up with the patch test idea after working with copper.

'All of a sudden, my hands and body became allergic to it,' she says. 'Once I thought I was detached from the world, but in fact I'm not.'

Whereas many younger artists enjoy challenging conventions and exploring the mysteries of female bodies, Stella Tang Ying-chi prefers a more traditional and womanly act: stitching.

She says that it entails double - and contradictory - meanings, which are self-exploring and self-confining.

'When you stitch, you create things out of your hands,' she says. 'However, simultaneously, the pattern you weave defines what you can do and how well you can stitch.'

Tang, who is a lecturer at the Arts School of Hong Kong Arts Centre, will display fabrics she sewed randomly from various coloured threads.

'In a way, these patterns mean repetition and framework that confine people's imagination and freedom,' she says. 'But the message behind my artwork applies to all sorts of constraints we have - they're not restricted to sexual inequality.

'Hong Kong women enjoy many opportunities that men enjoy, so gender struggle isn't an issue for me. There are more pressing issues that artists and people should pay more attention to, such as poverty and environmental protection.'

The cultural exchange project also features lectures on feminism and art by two feminist scholars Griselda Pollock (Britain) and Alison Rowley (Ireland).