On the way to Leung Chi-wo’s Fo Tan studio we make a wrong turn and encounter pig carcasses suspended from metal racks. The smell is overpowering. We retrace our steps and find our way to a spacious, orderly room with huge windows looking onto mountains.
A dog (named Bebe, we later find out) greets us. The feng shui is so good that it no longer feels like we’re in an industrial building.

It is in this tranquillity that Leung works, primarily in photography, with forays into installation, video, and painting. “I choose the medium according to the requirements of the project,” says the Chinese University BA and MFA, who had his first solo exhibition in 1998. “But I’m very interested in working in photography. When I start a project, many times I’ll begin by photographing. I’ve also found that if I’m at an artist residency outside the country, and I’m not sure what I want to work on, photography is a convenient
starting point.”

Many of Leung’s projects are concerned with space. In Invisible Domestica, he explores how people adapt to the challenges presented by their home spaces in over 100 photographs; in Work Space he documents work spaces in Asian art institutions like Asia Art Archive and Vitamin Creative Space in Guangzhou.

“I live in the city, so I’m quite concerned about landscape, and my relationship to space,” he says. “I often examine urban spaces. I don’t just think about physical spaces – sometimes it’s a political space or a historical space.” For his piece showing at the Museum of Art, he intertwines the personal, political and historical through landscapes and architecture, capturing our city’s post-colonial condition in a thoughtful, yet matter-of-fact way.

The artists:
Tozer Pak Sheung-chuen
Lee Kit
Doris Wong
Leung Chi-wo
Adrian Wong
Nadim Abbas
Tsang Kin-wah