The Zodiac Collection

In China, the units of time were once named after animals. This convention is still used informally, and the Chinese zodiac is a well known folk tale to this day. The collection depicts the twelve animals that represent each year of a 12 year cycle. Photographs of transport, accommodation and commerce are ripped, torn, then spliced together, eliciting the ever-changing face of Hong Kong: the cycles of time overlapping like the pictures in the collage.

The black and white images could easily be vintage captures, giving these pieces an ageless quality. This is enhanced by the recurring slivers of one of Hong Kong’s iconic modernist skyscrapers, Jardine House – a building considered old despite its construction in 1972. The juxtaposition of an ancient form of measuring time, and the trend in Hong Kong to constantly rebuild and replace, lends an interesting tension to these otherwise fun and whimsical forms.