Julian Lee chronicles his photographic career in Visionaire of Senses
When Julian Lee was granted the funding and gallery space at the City University of Hong Kong last summer, he thought his exhibition would be a posthumous one.
VISIONAIRE OF SENSES
Hong Kong International Photo Festival
When Julian Lee was granted the funding and gallery space at the City University of Hong Kong last summer, he thought his exhibition would be a posthumous one. A pioneering photographer since the 1980s, and a self-professed "jack of all trades" — he is recognised as a writer, filmmaker and professor — Lee was diagnosed in 2007 with pseudomyxoma peritonei, a rare and allegedly incurable type of cancer.
"All I could do was just wait and die," he says of the long period he spent hooked up to a drip. On top of three rounds of chemotherapy, Lee had two "risky operations" in Britain. Then, miraculously, he managed to get back toteaching, and start preparing for his new show.
"With my doctor's permission, I'm cutting short my chemotherapy and making a bold decision to come back. I am eager to attend and entertain guests at my opening party," he says of his exhibition preview on September 5, which coincides with the launch of his new book Hong Kong/China Photographers Eight: Julian Lee.