I try to see Hong Kong as a female figure and embody her on different aspects from the three of them to see what will happen "before" and "after."
I draw inspiration from ancient Chinese Folktale: Butterfly Lovers, Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai were finally together after their death for love. The beautiful love story has been adapted in many Chinese operas, but famous for Cantonese opera in particular. The story symbolizes "transformation," literally from human to butterfly to continue their love. I use the notion of "transformation" here to emphasize the changes happening around Hong Kong as my context. Then, I choose three representative Hongkongese females - Denise Ho, a singer and an activist for Hongkong democracy movement and LGBTQ rights, the only celebrity who was captivated by HK government during Umbrella Revolution. Second is Siu Yam-yam, a used-to-be beauty in Hong Kong Film industry, but experienced serious facial damage because of plastic surgeries and accidents, still active by performing "scary grandmas." And last is Sharla Cheung, a productive actress in the old days, but retired too soon and people begin to forget her.....Young people nowadays rarely recognize her. However, the common grand for the three of them is they all experienced "transformation." The captivity for Ho, the facial damage for Siu, and the being forgotten for Cheung.
The first half is accompanied by the Cantonese opera Liang Zhu - Huadie (265-420 AD), which consists of Ho's captivity moment in 2014 Umbrella Movement, Siu's film when she was still an envied beauty, and Cheung in Chow Sing Chi's movie when she was popular. All the clips are slow-motioned and tilted to black-and-white.
The second half is accompanied by the Denise Ho's song, Huadie(2005), similar subject matter as Huadie, which consists of Ho's private political-related concerts, Siu's interviews after her facial damage, and Cheung's aged appearance recently on small mainland TV programs that few people care about. All the clips are fast-motioned.
What I want to say is more about the fallible physique and spirit of humans, which leads to less autonomy and easy manipulation. Seemingly, we are all victims of time and consequences. Through my work of the youtube archives, one aspect I want say is we rarely have control of our own imagery online, then, how much do we own ourselves? Who are we in the larger history of changes around us? And where is the future?