Hong Kong as Creative Practice

In this book, Hong Kong is seen as a labyrinth, a postmodern site of capitalist desires, and a panoptic space both homely and unhomely. The author maps out various specific locations of the city through the intertwined disciplines of street photography, autoethnography and psychogeography. By meandering through the urban landscape and taking street photographs, this form of practice is open to the various metaphors, atmospheres and visual discourses offered up by the street scenes. The result is a practice-led research project informed by both documentary and creative writing that seeks to articulate thinking via the process of art-making.

As a research project on the affective mapping of places in the city, the book examines what Hong Kong is, as thought and felt by the person on the street. It explores the everyday experiences afforded by the city through the figure of the flâneur wandering in shopping districts and street markets. Through his own street photographs and drawing from the writings of Byung-Chul Han, Walter Benjamin and Michel de Certeau, the author explores feelings, affects, and states of mind as he explores the city and its social life.

Born in Singapore and a long-term resident in Hong Kong, Eddie Tay is a poet and a street photographer. He is Associate Professor in the Department of English, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.