Abstract
This paper examines Hong Kong-based artist Luke Ching Chin-wai’s visual politics as a way of thinking and acting visually to inspire what equal citizenship might look like. His politics responds to the postcolonial condition of Hong Kong where sovereignties are contested and the public realm is divided. I select three of his works involving photography to demonstrate how he identifies specific situations of unfreedom constituted by state power. I explore how he responds with three gestures: the “transversal” that cuts across the nation-state’s time of rule and the lived time of ordinary citizens, the “parochial” that connects personal affects with the collective imagination of a better state of affairs, and the “naïve” that is staged to mock police power. I argue that these gestures open up representational spaces for dissident citizenship and spaces for reflexivity essential to a society in transition, with its shareable ideals in a formative phase.
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Notes
- 1.
I conducted two interviews with the artist. The first one took place on January 3, 2021, at my home in a village in the district of Tai Po. The artist lives in a neighboring village in the same district. The second one took place on October 1, 2021, at a fast-food chain restaurant in Tai Po. The artist is also involved in participating in and organizing workers concerning labor rights in Tai Po, which he considers his immediate neighborhood.
- 2.
“QK” is transliteration of the Chinese characters 蹺蹊 (kiu3 kai1), an adjective that describes something strange and suspicious.
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My sincere gratitude to the anonymous reviewer and editors of this book for their critical and constructive comments. The responsibility for this chapter is mine.
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Yeung, Y. (2023). Visualizing the Transversal, Parochial, and Naïve—The Artist as Citizen’s Trope. In: Veneti, A., Rovisco, M. (eds) Visual Politics in the Global South. Political Campaigning and Communication. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22782-0_10
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