This comissioned exhibition was curated by Him Lo for The Mills, with a spatial intervention at a coffee shop that is seen as the modern watering hole, a gathering place where stories are told and communities are formed. This exhibition was multidiscplinary, incorporating poetry projected across the space, photographic prints and installation. The images depicted the daily lives and eccentricities of the locals in the public housing estate “Fortune Village”. 

It was originally built in the 1963-1967 as housing for factory workers who mostly worked in fabric mills in the district of Tsuen Wan. Inspired by my own grandfather’s history and footprint in the region after migrating from Shanghai during the Cultural Revolution, this series was produced as an ode to the history of the region and its people. Photographs were printed onto recycled canvas materials provided by The Mills and then moulded onto wavy boards - a common building material used for roofs or makeshift window protection against typhoons and monsoons. A wall based installation was hung using recycled rice bags stiched together - this was inspired by the DIY technique seen on windows in the estate used by residents. I combined them with transparent photographic prints and used a solution to scrub off the paint from the rice bags to reveal the image placed inside the bag, a sort of DIY dodging and burning technique.