Wrong is right on
When local graphic designer Kiki Wong asked Australian photo-media artist Benjamin Huie what he thought was wrong with Hong Kong, the answer was: 'Let's go and find out'. So they grabbed a digital recorder, a camera and a notebook and walked up to passing strangers on the streets in Wan Chai asking for their opinions about what's wrong with the city.
The result is What's Wrong?!, a photographic - and some would say literary - project that will show at the Fringe Club's The Economist Gallery from March 29 to April 13. The exhibition will also display selected works of Wong and Huie (who has since returned to Australia).
Twenty-four-year-old Wong, whose work switches between art and commercial design, says the exhibition is an opportunity to show foreigners that Hong Kong people are not really as materialistic as they are thought to be.
'Before we started off with the project, Benjamin said he thought Hong Kong people would be mostly concerned with food and money. As a Hongkonger, I knew this was not true,' Wong says.
The 18 photographic subjects (two examples are pictured above) represent a fairly typical mix of people, including teenagers, housewives, office workers and middle-aged men. Wong's favourite is a young woman who asked philosophically, 'Why do all beautiful things exist for such a short time?'
While some participants complained about the lack of job opportunities and the incompetence of the government - a typical response from people living in a city plagued by economic and political woes - Wong said this did not necessarily mean that people here had a negative attitude towards life.
'It is usual for people to have some complaints because they love this place,' Wong says. 'Hong Kong people are renowned for their work ethic and they are by nature positive people. They treasure their lives and that's why they work so hard to improve their livelihoods.'
To capture the spontaneity of the responses, Wong - responsible for the calligraphy of the quotes layered on top of the images - says she attempted to create the impression that the comments had been scribbled on the photos with chalk.
'The answer to the question 'What's wrong?' can vary from day to day for some people, just as things written down in chalk can be easily erased,' Wong says. 'They are not aphorisms or important documents, but merely some inner thoughts of ordinary people at that particular moment that will disappear as time goes by.'
Wong, who grew up in Hong Kong and graduated from the Hong Kong Technical College (Tsing Yi), says she hopes her work serves as a platform for people to communicate and understand each other.
'I want to reflect people's thoughts and ideas through my work so that people from different places can understand each other,' Wong says. 'The world could become a peaceful place if we all communicate better with each other.'
