I consider the photos of street advertisements my first portraits in Hong Kong.  These street scrawlings by Ali guided me to the people that I have been taking photos of over the next few years. 

The idea of using calligraphy as an approach to my neighborhood came to me after meeting a person who was studying kung fu through Bruce Lee’s handwritten notes. Since that moment I collected hundreds of advertisements from the streets of Mong Kok and Sham Shui Po that later I knew they were to rent rooms. Mostly 劏房 (tong fong): subdivided cheap flats popular in the area.

As I can not read Chinese and therefore empathize with the language, I started to pay attention only to those advertisements written in English until I finally stumbled upon Ali.  I interpreted his messages like an arrow that pointed me to the people to photograph: foreigners who probably shared my struggles with the language and the frustration of always using approximate words.

Mong Kok & Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong
2017 – 2018

Le Dialogue (2002)
François Cheng