Highlighting history’s accidental photo extras
Print Edition
HONG Kong photographers Leung Chi Wo and Sara Wong’s “Lost” series started with the picture of a Tokyo train station taken in 1955. The picture taken in Ota ward was rediscovered in a photo album five years ago when they were working for a public art festival in Tokyo. A woman in one of the pictures drew their attention.
“Even though I had no idea why I cared so much, I wanted to find out her identity immediately,” Wong recalled. “I started to imagine who she was… ‘She must be 80 now; Does she still live in the ward?’ I thought to myself.”
The duo then redid the photo and stuck it on the window of the Yaguchi-no-Watashi Station, where the original picture was taken.
“It is a kind of connection between us and the woman. We want to find her, but also know that it’s likely impossible. This is what we feel is interesting,” Wong said.
Since then, they started to collect all kinds of printed matter, such as calendars, old newspaper and magazines, and records, to preserve those artifacts that carry “lost identities” — people who have become part of a photograph by accident.
In 2013, Leung and Wong established the Museum of the Lost in Hong Kong to preserve this collection of images. Each image is paired with a note that offers their own interpretation of the character.
Currently at SCoP, they give those anonymous figures center stage. “He was lost yesterday and we found him” features Leung and Wong dressed up and posing exactly like the people in the older photos.
“We have magnified the photos in hopes of the viewers can walk up and have a close look at the details,” Leung said. Wong added they tried to recreate the characters by paying attention to even the smallest detail. “Most people never care about these things,” Leung said, mocking herself. “Maybe it is because we are so boring in real life.”
“It was like reading books by Haruki Murakami. I am really obsessed with his detailed descriptions, without much adjectives, sometimes monotonous, even,” Wong said.
Q: Why are you so obsessed with finding “lost” characters?
Wong: Every day we see a lot of pictures. But there are always some very special figures in some of the pictures, people who appeared there for unknown reasons. They are not who the photographers were focusing on. They just happened to be there at that time.
What we understand about photography is you click and then this critical moment is saved as an image which later becomes history. In this series, we are more interested in discovering some forgotten figures. Those figures are not entirely indifferent. At least those pictures are proofing their existence. It’s just that we don’t know who they are.
Q: Why do you choose these characters? What makes them so special?
Leung: The criteria of choosing is a bit subjective. We’ve seen a lot of materials, only a few were kept. Sometimes we also wonder why they are so appealing to us.
Wong: We actually don’t know why we care so much about them at first... But later we do find some common things in these characters. First of all, they are all unidentified. There was once a person we were so interested in that we did a massive amount of research. Yet we suddenly lost our interest when we managed to figure out who the person is.
Leung: It was as if you run into a stranger on street and getting to learn more about him or her.
Wong: Yes. When you come between known and unknown, when you are trying to figure out the person through all the traces, there’s a lot of room for imagination.
Another thing is when we make them the main characters and omit all the backgrounds, they each become an independent figure against single-color background. The focus is then all on their body, which is a bit awkward but interesting.
Q: Why did you decide to play these characters yourself?
Wong: When we did the research, we gradually felt strongly connected with them, which was a lot of fun. In a couple of cases, we did find the position where the photographers took the pictures, so we can entirely see the image. It is impressive to relive the process. Naturally, we want to present these characters who are rarely seen in these pictures. The series can be called self-portraits, because these characters are actually all us. But we don’t just imitate them. We write for each of them, create pseudo stories. It is how we understand them, part of which may be their true story, or not.
Q: Do you try to restore every detail of these characters?
Wong: Most of them, yes. But some of the pictures are of low resolution, so there isn’t a lot of information. But we try to figure out by following many traces. If we know the picture is taken in the 1940s, we will then look at other pictures from that period of time, and presume what the character should be like. Or watch videos to understand why the characters pose the way they do. Sometimes I would imagine what the character was doing before and after the moment he or she was photographed.
I always think the critical moment that one clicks the shutter is quite poetic. In one-thousandth of a second, you let in the light. But when we shot this series, we extend that moment. There’s a huge contrast.
“Figure of Speech”
Date: Through February 29
Venue: Shanghai Center of Photography
Address: 2555-1 Longteng Ave
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