Preface
In the 14th edition since its inception in 2001, the annual Pingyao International Photography Festival draws up the curtain again in Shangxi province. This year Macao Museum of Art (MAM), under the Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau of Macao (IACM), has been invited to its second participation in the festival, this time presenting to visitors an exhibition Heartscapes of Macao.
The six participating artists hail from grandfather-and-grandson generations, since the most senior was born in 1918 and the youngest is from the post-1990s generation. Different generations of Macao have captured, through their lens, the transformation and sceneries of their home city. The trove of photos span 60 years, bearing witness to Macao’s social changes and evolution. From varied photographic perspectives, the photographers show us a different Macao, full of charm and time-defying warm human touch.
Different generations have witnessed the small city’s transformation through the times. The senior photographers focused on capturing Macao people’s daily life and retaining for us erstwhile images of a quaint fishing town. But the post-1980s and post-1990s generations, with access to better technology made possible by rapid socio-economic development, focused on strong visual effects. Creating ‘out the frame’, these young artists register not only what they see through the lens, but also what they think and feel.
Three of the exhibiting authors, Lei Iok Tin, Lee Kung Kim and Ou Ping, are experienced pioneers in Macao’s photography circle. With enviable experience and creative accumulation over the years, they produce black-and-white photos showing thoughtful views that give viewers a feeling of tranquility, peace and leisure.
The young ones – Tang Kuok Hou, Season Lao Sin Hang and Rusty Fox – all lived or sojourned overseas. Exposed to Western culture and contemporary trends, they tend to explore the relationship between city and nature in more abstract ways. The connections and strong links with their native place prompted them to return home. Their works reveal Macao sceneries rendered from different angles and with different moods. In the boundless world of photography, these subtle, refined images are telling stories of Macao views but each with a subtext.
In Pingyao, Heartscapes of Macao is like a time machine, inviting visitors home and abroad to take a journey in time, travelling 60 years across the old and new Macao.
Chan Hou Seng
Director of the Macao Museum of Art