2.05 - 2.05.2026

About Walking far, wandering lost

This photography book corner brings together artists who, from my student years to the present, have shaped my imagination of what photography can be. I first encountered Chen Shun-Chu’s work during my undergraduate studies. What struck me most was the cover of On The Road—a quiet, solitary yet restless black-and-white image, like a path leading me, as a viewer, toward an unknown destination. In the years that followed, as I moved back and forth between different cities for study and creative projects, I came to understand that the anonymous roads recurring in his photographs lead to places where we depart or are left behind in time—a home, a city—marked with significance in the artist’s inner landscape.

During those years of working across cities, I could only carry a single suitcase. Inside it were my daily life, photographic equipment, artwork and a mobile studio. My works (photographs) could not exist as framed, fixed objects to be transported. This led me to think about how photography might move beyond the flat surface—how images could enter the world and our communities in a fluid form. In Chen’s Flower Ritual site-specific photographic installation series, framed photographs of flowers transform a family graveyard into a garden that blooms year-round. Meanwhile, Dayanita Singh’s Museum Bhavan and Museum of Chance turn photographs into portable, elongated books, or into a mobile archive constructed from teak bookshelves reminiscent of colonial government offices. These works deeply inspired me, leading me to present my own image-based works through combinations of audio-photobooks that include city walks, and site-specific photographic installation.

Later, while creating photobooks, I often collaborated with designers and printing specialists. On one occasion, a designer friend shared Haruka Fujita’s Torikumo, which uses dense black ink with minimal color to depict the many beings inhabiting the night. Besides, the photography book corner also includes several books by Masao Yamamoto.
Experience these works in person! Join our photography book talk on 2 May at Koon Man Space to hear the stories and inspirations behind the art.

Artist

Wong and Ryser are an artist duo who have travelled and worked in Europe (Venice, Berlin, Switzerland, Norway), U.S., Hong Kong and Taiwan. Frequently interacting with local communities in different countries using images and sound, their focus lies in examining dispersed communities, exploring themes such as sense of belonging, identity, imagined homelands, and their intersections with politics and history. They have realised artistic research projects among the Hong Kong diaspora around the world, the local Hong Kong community, and indigenous people in Taiwan and the U.S. Their recent works often revolve around the collection of personal narratives from individuals, serving as a means to accumulate collective urban memories.