The Eye of the City

Tse Ming Chong has spent decades watching the streets of Hong Kong change. His work does not look away from the shifts in sovereignty or the evolving skyline, focusing instead on how these movements settle upon the people living within them. He began his formal training in the early eighties, studying photography at the Kwun Tong Vocational Training Centre and later filmmaking at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. This technical foundation in light and motion informs a practice that moves between photography, image-making media, and theatre art.

His gaze often settles on the quiet, unscripted moments of urban life. In 1999, he documented a research project focused on the Horseracing Betting Centre in Hong Kong, a work now held by the Hong Kong Heritage Museum. He has a way of capturing the tension in a landscape, such as during the early days of the 2014 civil disobedience movement. Walking through Central toward Causeway Bay in the early morning hours, he recorded the streets when they were empty and heavy with anticipation.

Layers of Documentation

The artist’s practice is built on layers of observation. He has used transparency, silver gelatin prints, and mixed media to build visual records of his surroundings. Some of his projects involve complex installations, like the 1996 work involving colour transparency and black and white laser jet on paper that explored village life in Sheung Wo Hang. His books, including Chronicle – A Hong Kong Diary, act as visual journals that track the passage of time across a quarter-century.

In recent years, his relationship with the medium has shifted. For an exhibition titled Drawing as the Core in 2019, he presented Light in the Dark, a silver gelatin print created without a camera. He used overexposed images from the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement to condense silver halide onto black and white paper, resulting in a pitch-black image where hope is hidden within the darkness. This method reflects his interest in how light can be used to document or even obscure reality.

A Commitment to the Image

Beyond his individual works, Tse Ming Chong has worked to build structures for photography in Hong Kong. He is a co-founder of Lumenvisum, a centre and gallery dedicated to promoting photography education and contemporary practice. His career has been marked by several recognitions for both his artistic development and his contributions to arts promotion:

• The Bronze Award/ Kodak Award in the Editorial category from the Hong Kong Institute of Professional Photographers in 1995.
• A Fellowship for Artistic Development from the Hong Kong Arts Development Council in 1997.
• The Award for Arts Promotion from the Hong Kong Arts Development Awards 2016.
• The Professional Achievement Award from The British Council Hong Kong Alumni Awards in 2017.

His collections are held in significant institutions, including the Hong Kong Museum of Art, the Hong Kong Heritage Museum, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography. Through teaching at the Hong Kong Design Institute and the Hong Kong Art School, he continues to engage with the mechanics of how images are made and understood.