2017 marks the 20th anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong to China. The twenty years have been a turbulent time with an ostensible polarisation of ideologies and a growing outcry of an independent identity from China (“HongKongism”).  
 
In these two decades, the list of unsolved social issues in Hong Kong grows ceaselessly: housing shortage, call for democracy, income disparity... After the local riot in 1967, the Tiananmen Incident in 1989 and the overwhelming uncertainty anticipating the handover in 1997, a new wave of immigration is about to emerge.
 
The subjects of this photography series are local Hongkongers aged 20-30. All of them have immigrated to the U.K. and are currently in the midst of fulfilling a minimum of 7-year stay to obtain the legal right of abode. 
 
The most intriguing part is that most of them were too young anyway to experience the British sovereignty before 1997, but had still nevertheless abandoned their homeland to pursue the values of a former colonial empire they had hardly experienced.
 
This work is dedicated to creating a brief space for the two minds to cross: for those who have been imagining the relief of emigration from Hong Kong to unveil the reality, and for those who have left to look back.  
 
“Are you now living your ideal life now as you wish?”  
 
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Artist Biography:
Queenie LI (b. 1991, Hong Kong) obtained her first bachelor degree in Global Business Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2013. She decided to return to studies after three years of working, and is currently reading for a Bachelor of Fine Art degree at the University of Oxford, UK.
 
Whilst her main medium of artistic expression is principally through photography, she also actively explores a plethora of other media including digital art and multimedia installation. Queenie’s work is often socially-driven, shedding light on economic and political conflicts in the contemporary embodiment. She acted as the Art Columnist for the Cherwell, the independent student newspaper at Oxford from Hilary to Trinity Term of 2017. She will take up the role of Deputy Editor in Art & Literature for The Oxford Student, run by the Oxford University Student Union in the Michaelmas Term, 2017. 
 
Her photography work was selected for the “100 Self-Portraits of Hongkongese” exhibition at PMQ, Hong Kong in 2015.
 

Book Size：W210mm x H148mm
ISBN：978-988-77970-1-2
Pages: 40 pages
Printing：Color
Edition: 1st Edition, Aug. 2017 – 100 copies
Language: Chinese, English
Publisher: brownie publishing ltd.