Things to do in Hong Kong this week

Since launching in 2010, the biennial festival has acted as a platform to promote photographic art and culture in Hong Kong, showcasing both reputed international artists and local photographers. Back and looking to encourage and educate people vis-a-vis the art of photography, the Hong Kong International Photo Festival returns with a wide variety of exhibitions, featuring names like Nakahira Takuma and Moriyama Daido. A diverse range of engagement programmes including talks, workshops and a camera-centric flea market as a bonus.

Auction house Phillips showcases 27 iconic and previously unseen works by renowned English street artist Banksy at this selling exhibition. Instead of traversing the streets of London, Hongkongers can now view some of Banksy’s greatest hits like The Girl with the Ballon and Love Rat inside one gallery room. Here’s to hoping he doesn’t shred another piece at the next auction. Note that public viewings are between Mondays to Fridays, while weekends require appointments. 

Having spent the past three years exploring and hitting the streets of the city, locally-based photographer Chak Kit has managed to capture minimalist yet captivating images of Hong Kong. Differentiating from typical Hong Kong photos is Chak’s ability to move past the usual crowded and dense architecture and present visual stories through colours, lines, grids and patterns.  

Rendered through pop-art creations and graphic novel motifs, Timekeeper is a series of colourful portraits of tattooed individuals. O’Flynn tattooed characters exude complex, wry and humorously cynical perceptions of our world today. From symbols of the Illuminati and Third Eye, to Virgin Mary embellished with an “om” symbol and quotes about mind control and John Lennon’s “Imagine”, Timekeeper will have you swallowing the red pill and journeying down the rabbit hole to meet the myriad of influences, contradictions and questions of contemporary society today.

German artist Susanne Winterling takes over the black-cube Empty Gallery to present her artworks that feature the marine victims of climate change – dinoflagellates, the micro single-cell algae and plankton that support the basis of the food chain in the deep sea. The centrepiece of the exhibition is an immersive video projected against an enormous curved screen. Accompanying the film are sculptural 3D-printed dinoflagellates and turtle that have been cast out of Hong Kong beach sand to warn the public that our precious marine life is at risk. With a sense of aesthetic wonder, the exhibition interprets cyberpunk magic realism with the wonder of projections.