Home Kong through an artist's 👁️ye: Stefan Irvine
Blue Lotus Gallery, established in 2007, is a photography gallery with a strong focus on exploring Hong Kong culture and identity. Different perspectives opens up our minds. In our news letters, different artists from the Gallery will give us a peek into their own HK. Through their perspective, their lens.
The Blue Lotus gallery offers an exquisite selection of books, limited edition and vintage prints on old and new Hong Kong by respected master photographers and emerging contemporary artists.
In this edition of the LocalHood blog we have for you an art piece from Stefan Irvine, curtesy of Blue Lotus Gallery. Born in London in 1976, Stefan Irvine has been based in Hong Kong since 2002. With a background in photojournalism and commercial photography, the last few years have seen him focus on fine art photography projects.
Stefan's photographs have been exhibited in New York, London and Hong Kong, as well as appearing in publications globally including The New York Times, National Geographic, Forbes, Rolling Stone, and The Wall Street Journal. He is the winner of the Independent on Sunday/Oxfam Photojournalist Award and was awarded 1st Place in the Architecture/Other category of the International Photography Awards 2020.
In this Project "Hong Kong's disappearing Tong Lau: A panoramic perspective" Stefan Irvine has set out to record and memorize these buildings. He shows a Hong Kong whose skyline is dominated by gleaming skyscrapers and curtains of glass.
But for much of the city, life is lived a little lower to ground level, in walk up buildings known as "tong lau"- densely packed tenements marked by shops on the ground floor and apartments above. But increasingly these buildings have been earmarked by the government and property developers for demolition, followed by redevelopment. They may look unique- and are home to hundreds of families- but they don't bring in the big bucks.
And so, instead of snapping a photo of these buildings, the Hong Kong photographer stiches together multiple images to capture an entire block in a single densely packed frame". (Text source: Adam white from www. Stefanirvine.photo)
The Blue Lotus gallery offers an exquisite selection of books, limited edition and vintage prints on old and new Hong Kong by respected master photographers and emerging contemporary artists.
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