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South China Sea

Faceless women and other damn itches

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Photographer Amy Cheung Wan-man's subjects are faceless. All you see are their backs. They could be a working woman standing in front of a Mark Six lottery machine or a female vicar working in a gay church.

'I find people's backs more interesting,' says Cheung. 'The face is like a mask, deceiving others into believing that a smiling person is a happy person. But that's not always the case.'

Cheung herself has doll-like features - a huge pair of hazel brown eyes and long straight black hair. She says that eclipsing her subjects' faces is symbolic in changing people's perceptions of women.

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'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.

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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.

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