Wanting to escape from urban Hong Kong, I found myself walking near the northern border every weekend. I had no particular destination and would surrender to the journey and photograph encounters along my path. I came across a landscape deeply contested between developers and villagers, nature and infrastructure – fragments of forgotten histories eroded by urban development, and with even more tides of change looming from across the border. Far more than a geographical region, ‘New Territories’ is a personal meditation of a place, a space, that is ever-changing, a ground rupturing beneath the feet.
Justin HUI started photographing in 2014 when he took a one-way flight to East Africa to document Chinese-financed development for a year. Since then, he has drawn on his background in architecture and urbanism to explore themes that engender land development, absence, memory, and globalisation. A registered architect (AIA), he currently works between visual art, research, and architecture, often employing archives, maps, and found materials.