Reality is not image, but reality associates with vast amount of images. Image is not reality, but image helps us recall our memory on reality. Reality cannot be preserved. We preserve images. We duplicate images, and make whatever number of copies. By going through this process, another dimension of time and space is constructed.

After the tragedy happened in Lan Kwai Fong at the New Year's Eve of 1992, I felt sad about the victims. It is not only a sympathy to the victims, but also about the response of the people on the photography exhibition 'VISIONS'. I didn't know why. I was urged by myself to make some images. I went there one day and took some photographs. In 1996, I submitted one of the images to a local independent publication of visual art by Workshop (for one issue called, "City Graffiti"). Afterwards, I had lost their contact, and the original negative was never returned. Until now, I am still keeping 3 copies of "City Graffiti".

Somehow, this original negative is lost. The past is like all buried in my memory.

More Background

'Recently the unfortunate tragedy of the deaths of 20 revellers on the New Year's Eve of 1992 had bought unwanted attention to Lan Kwai Fong again. While on the surface it seems that a lot of people's misconception about the place is once again confirmed, actually it is worthwhile to examine in greater details issues that came with the accident. It reminds us once again that it definitely is not Montmartre; it is always linked with Hong Kong's own sets of political and social problems, After the Governor's visit to the site and the hospital, representatives from New China News Agency made visits and announcements of concern. Later some Legislative Councillors made some public addresses which aroused public attracks that they were not realy doing anything useful but just promoting their own images. And some speculations on drinks bans or future restrictions in the area created public uneasy. All these reflect the delicate Hong Kong is in, while everything is, of course, linked with the political predicament, and loss of freedom, or restriction in any form, would easily alarm people'

While the mourning ceremony was held at the corner of D'Aguilar Street for the 20 deaths, another group become victims in the aftermaths of this incident. Hong Kong Institute of Professional Photographers (HKIPP), which had organised an exhibition in Lan Kwai Fong a couple of weeks ago, now had to remove some of the photographs they hung above the streets. One of the photographs, "Stun" by Osbert Lam, which shows a blow-up of a walnut shell carved with thirty Buddist monk figures crowed together in the background of bleached blue leaves, is rumored to be a prophecy of the tragedy of 20 deaths in crush. The rumor was soon picked up by gossip columns and newspaper reports, and eventually a popular magazine the East Weekly did a special issue on this, with Osbert's photography on the cover, and various fung shui people commenting on the bad omens that the artworks represented. Not only was "Stun" the target, other pictures were open to various readings and interpretations. Caan-Angela and Carsten Schael's Red-Brick-one was said to be similar to a gravestone; Stephen Cheung's Pony Lily was said to present a bouquet of flowers on the grave yard. Andrew Chester Ong's Untitled, because it has a clock in it (it reads "Zhong" in Cantonese) was said to be have implied "zung-zhong" (seeing people off in funeral). David Ng's Yellow Stone Mists, with its misty scenery, was said to resemble vaguely a girl's head in its lying position. Even the old comb show in Jen Halim's Her is regarded as indicative of objects accompanying the dead in the grave. The fung shui people had all speculated on the reasons of the tragedy - bad fung shui of the place, bad date and so on, and one suggested that who ever enters Lan Kwai Fong now should close his plam and murmur three times: Lift all the bad omens!

......

In the open space above the street, the photographs had been taken down. ......'

(excerpt from "Dislocation - Public vs Images", 1993)