Simon Wan was born in Hong Kong. He graduated from the University of Wales with a BA in Documentary Photography in 2000, and obtained his MFA in Photography from Ulster University, Belfast, in 2018. He is currently a Lecturer and Programme Coordinator at the Hong Kong Art School, and is also the founder of the art space The Photocrafters, which is dedicated to promoting photography education in Hong Kong.
Inspired by nature, Wan’s practice integrates photography with performative and endurance-based artistic acts, including mountain climbing and kayaking. Through these physically demanding processes, he examines the relationship between humanity and the natural world, hile reflecting on broader questions surrounding human existence. His signature works include City Glow (2008), 107 No Man Islands (2015), The Other Side of the Mountain (2018), Searching through Non-searching (2019), and his ongoing decennial project Climb Every Mountain in HK, which began in 2003.
Wan’s works have been featured internationally and acquired by many local and international private collectors and institutes. He is currently Vice Chairman of Hong Kong International Photography Festival.
City Glow
In today’s interconnected world of information, advertisements and technology, many places have been transformed into global ones. I worked on the renowned cities of Asia. Shooting respectively in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Taipei, Tokyo, Seoul and Singapore, in these metropolises he played with the night time cityscapes of the busiest and the brightest street of each location.
The work intends to reveal the social realities in Asia. The construction of the work is methodical. With the use of multiple exposures I overlay images of international brands, advertisements and even traces of city dwellers lives upon each other. The details of these symbolic icons reflect the social phenomena of globalization, consumerism and economic growth.
These resulting images force enable us to suspend between fantasy and reality. Our inability to separate ourselves from these two dimensional images comes on and goes. According to the intersecting structures of lines in these photographs, we are able to see the distinctive urban style of each city and so there remains a sense of individual characteristic. In fact, it is only when we find the common features such as brand names, chain stores and celebrities in the advertisements between the locations that we realize what resonates among them. For both better and worst globalization draws upon us all at some point and unifies the people of the world to function together. On the contrary, the impact of the capitalism has also demolished our uniqueness. In City-Glow, we manage to understand how our societies are interchanging at all times, as always.