‘So close and yet so far away’ originates from the contemplation of self-identity exploring the relationship between memory and identity. It is a series of conversations among Hong Kong people about the history and future of the city and the social-political environment. This project documents contemporary Hong Kong society through diverse personal identities and geographic locations.

Utilising the classical genres of portrait and landscape, I identify and question the identity crisis associated with the socio-political situation in Hong Kong. By capturing the unique characteristics of both environment and inhabitant, I call attention to the shifting conditions of our time. By capturing the tranquil moments in daily life, my photography explores the Hong Kong border and emigration of Hong Kong people to the United Kingdom.

I rely on intuition and devote myself to creating a poetic language of photography, using nature's growth and migration as the metaphor. I attempt to record the finiteness of Hong Kong people and the calmness that arises in the environment.

‘So close and yet so far away’ consists of two chapters. The first chapter ‘So Close and yet’ mainly tells about the border and politics leftover from the undeniable Sino-British history, which became the inseparable relationship between the two cities. I tried to capture the portrayal and metaphors of daily life. The image is in a peaceful state, but hidden behind Hong Kong society, it is experiencing a complex tension and political environment.

The second chapter ‘So far away’, investigates the Hong Kong society based on its changes in the course of history, exploring the identities and memories of Hong Kong new immigrants in the UK, and conveying the emotions of Hong Kongers who are trying to find their way to a new home.

The Yellow Steps navigates with notions of visibility and change; primarily how the construct of gender is determined by what is visible. The work is a conceit for the way in which the trans body acts in opposition to this trope and moreover, as a site of cultural resistance.

The project is a collaboration between myself and Mika, a trans boy, allowing him to build and actively participate in a narrative of his own construction.

The title of the project is derived from Mika’s poem The Yellow Steps, which describes a piece of architecture that at once unsettled him but also offered an escape from his troubled homelife growing up.

Architecture is used throughout to echo this sense of construction, the constant shrouding alluding to the underlying transition beneath. The work is a construct of measured realisation; beginning initially with the hidden, before a gradual advance towards revelation.

Castle of Innocence delves into the imaginative space of the Children's Museum of Costa Rica and its cultural heritage as the former Central Prison to examine the power dynamics present in the control of narratives and perception of history.

By working with archive material from the prison period, staged reproductions of the prison's cells, and symbolic objects and environments from the Children's Museum, the project questions the historical use of photography as a document of truth, the role of memory in the reconstruction of identities, and the influence of the past in our relationship with reality.

The project uses a nonlinear narrative to confront the imprints of trauma and violence from the building's past as a prison with the illusory environments from the museum's current context. This strategy creates a new space for interpretation in which apparent reoccurrences and contradictions arise, the boundaries between reality and fiction start to dissolve, and a renewed sense of place-identity surfaces.

The imagery that constitutes the series develops an ominous atmosphere associated with the secrecy of information and the creation of myths; various leitmotifs are used, such as the repetition of artifacts related to the examination of knowledge or the analysis of gestures within the archive material through image juxtaposition and intervention.

The study of the Children's Museum provides ground for a reflection on the passivity of our gaze towards images, the relevance of imagination in our understanding of reality, and the liminal space between protection and control in our current post-truth era.

Over the past centuries, the illustration of the female body in western culture was heavily influenced by a concept of youthful beauty and suggests it as a “healthy” and desirable norm. The expectation this creates weighs heavily on the population of women who are exposed to it and urges them to fight ageing by any means possible, denying the natural process of their bodies transforming.

In my project, I aim to document women of all ages and sizes to represent the essential beauty of the feminine form, one that is eternal and free from the constructs of contemporary beauty standards. Using the nude as a means of artistic expression, the series also attempts to present a more timeless depiction of the female body leaving the erotic nature, in addition to feedback on the ideological background of the fine art tradition of past centuries.

The series began and inspired by photographing my mother’s girlfriends, whom I wanted to capture because, despite their age (+60), they treated their bodies with self-forgetfulness and acceptance that many young people today simply cannot. It made me think. I wanted to make a series where this kind of duality shows up.

To introduce young, beautiful women but still struggle with a lot of insecurity and frustration, in parallel with older women who can accept and love themselves despite the apparent changes in their bodies, thus becoming beautiful.

The book ‘Blood Shark’ explores my father's journey, and our relationship, following a stroke he suffered from a few years ago and the Aphasia - the loss of words - that followed.

The collection of photos is a mixture of my own photographs and found images. It illustrates our narrative through an assemblage of tropes to mirror the process of unravelling the experience we both went through.

‘Blood Shark’, is a pun, translating “blood clot” from Hebrew to English, that corresponds with images in the book.

What can a potato tell us about ourselves? What does it say about the construction of national identity? What role can new narratives around it play in how a society imagines itself and other worlds? How can translocal stories and food cultures be connected as an inroad to address forgotten colonial legacies and the wider context of political, social, and emotional relationships?These are some of the questions that lead to the harvesting of stories around the potato that forms Cooking Potato Stories.

This work has its roots in the tension between personal and social identity and the historical and cultural influences on its formation. Using the role of the potato as a conductive narrative, I question the power structures behind the construction of identity, based on my own experience moving between Latin America and Europe. It is a transatlantic recipe that mixes the "here" and "there", which includes different ingredients such as heritage, history, imaginary, tradition and autobiography to reflect on how a society imagines itself and imagines other worlds based on the stories they tell each other.

We all make sense of our lives through a combination of narratives, a blurred system of ideas that inspires reactions, determines values, judgments, opinions and behaviours. Today a region does not necessarily have to be a space defined politically or geographically, but a specific space for common stories and experiences, a state of mind rather than a place on the map. Therefore, finding our place means finding our place in a story and where the plot of these photographs intersect is where my place is located. I propose an encounter of narratives around the potato that grows an alternative story that questions the ideologies, power and subjectivities behind the narratives. I develop recipes of knowledge that unfold different aspects of the potato's history to push a new social memory about it. Cooking Potato Stories drives us in the complex process of how we construct, understand and make sense of ourselves individually and as a collective.

‘Fading Senses’ is a research project and a photographic essay where I reflect on sensory deprivation and environmental anxiety. Solastalgia is a relatively new concept for understanding the implications of the loss of ecosystems on our mental and emotional health. Described as an earth-related state, it reflects the zeitgeist of our time. As an increasing problem in societies, it manifests itself in a feeling of dislocation, a lived experience of the loss of the present.

A perspective of a fading world and a state of fading away is close to sensory deprivation. The absence of senses, one of the biggest human fears, can lead to intra-mental perception, echolocation, and memory flashbacks. As I have temporarily lost one of the senses in the past, this deprivation became my intuitive leading guide, which I have applied to the working method and to the visual language.

Being strongly concerned about solastalgia’s impact, I asked myself, what happens if we lose our senses? How does it affect our emotional health and memory, in times of multispecies extinction? Using photography, I create a mental image of an ungraspable sensation to underline human disconnection from the natural habitat. Photographs from the project are exhibited together with an olfactory installation.

The Truth is in the Soil is a long-term exploration of grief and mourning rituals inspired by the last communities of professional mourners on the Mani peninsula of Greece. Sparked by my father’s death, my own grieving process became the lens through which I investigate the collective mourning in Greek society, the intersection of ancestral rituals, private trauma and passage of time.

In the crossroads of performance and staged emotion, my photography aims at bringing the viewer in a limbo between the real and the imaginary, highlighting the void of separation and loss. In a way, these images work as vehicles for mourning perished ideals of vitality, prosperity and belonging, attempting to tell something further than their subjects by creating a space where death can exist.

Greece is a constant inspiration and encounter in this work, but the way is depicted is imagined. It is like the idea of the homeland being this place one knows outside of memory, a land of curiosity where death is an encounter through family, religion, mythology and the self.

Growing up I always tried to help my Dad with DIY jobs around the house and wanted to be able to do what he did. But his lack of patience, or maybe my lack of understanding, meant that I was often relegated to being the gofer, tea maker, holder of things and sweeper up. This led to feelings of inadequacy for many years and an avoidance of certain jobs and activities.

In the run up to becoming a dad last year, I suddenly felt a need to make something with wood. Perhaps it was out of a fear that I wouldn’t match up to my vision of what a dad looked like but I found myself making small objects and then bigger ones. Things seemed to come naturally and my confidence slowly grew. The shame and inadequacy that I’d felt started to shift. I send him pictures of things I’ve made and he says  “You’re a chip off the old block after all”. I’m not sure if I have learned because of or in spite of him but something seems to have gone in, and stayed. Working with wood has become a way to combine a creative and physical labour, a connection between my Dad’s and my own world. As a son and now also a dad myself, I am looking back to consider the experiences that shaped me whilst questioning the future experiences which may shape my Son and what my role will be in them.