André Leischner

Hong Kong International Photo Festival

After I have returned from Hongkong and while reviewing all these countless impressions, I somehow feel forced to dedicate a separate blog entry to the HKIPF, the Hong Kong International Photo Festival that currently takes place over there in several locations all over Hongkong. I was lucky to see two exhibitions of it, one in HK Central and another (really big) one in Shek Kip Mei.

Besides the fact that it takes place from October 28th until February 12th 2019, I don’t want to bother you with things that everyone can read on the HKIPF-website, in case you are interested. I just want to recommend this wonderful event. Everyone who is seriously into photography must be getting goosebumps seeing this exhibition. What you can see there just grounds you to what that wonderful medium called ‚photography‘ really is, what it is supposed to transmit and what makes its genuine and special way of showing, documenting and also staging things, views, life and moments.

I can say that my view on what I do here, the way I am used to take pictures and my attitude towards the results of it have been unsettled by just seeing this exhibition, or at least my perspective has been straightened a bit, which feels so inspiring and cleansing. We should just give a fuck on trends and glamour, we are not the ones who paint pictures of something we want to see in an optimized or idealized way. We are the ones who are in a position to catch what is real, to play with what is real, to document what is real. And most important: we don’t need a disguise for what we do.

Besides the photographs and photographic installations (I was merely impressed by a dark room, the visitor enters with a small LED pocket lamp and having a look around, he becomes part of an indiscrete, yet impressingly frozen scenario, feeling like standing in a dark night in a park, surrounded by couples in action and accidently discovering fragments of this scenario by a pretty small LED light cone) you can also take some gloves and look at several books and publications. To me, one of the most impressing printed publications were the PROVOKE books. These are rare documents of refreshingly untrendy photographic work. Set up by a group of Japanese photographers, this magazine wants to show an extraordinary, noncompliant way of taking pictures. Remarkably founded in the 1970’s, unfortunately there have been not more than three issues. From my point of view they are timeless, at least I think that seeing and understanding their content is essential to anyone who considers himself to be a photographer even or just nowadays.

However, everyone who has an opportunity to go there and see it – just do it, it’s worth it and it’s for free!

--> https://hkipf.org.hk/