At Gallery Exit, a solo exhibition by Hong Kong artist Luke Ching reveals how his work straddles interventionist art, relational installations and documentary photography. Featuring works created by the artist between 1998 and 2006, “For now we see through a window, dimly” tells of his method and concept, and gives rise to his role as a storyteller through conceptual and protracted artwork. Predominantly featuring large-scale, black-and-white pinhole photography, alongside installation and video works, Ching’s depiction of the rapid changes to Hong Kong’s cityscapes during recent years is at once perplexing and unnerving. 

Entering Gallery Exit, one first sees three photographs, each made up of multiple sheets of approximately 40-by-50-centimeter photo paper, individually framed behind glass. Facing each other on either side of the room are 41 Salisbury Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon (positive) and 41 Salisbury Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon (negative) (both 2004). As their titles suggest, these two works show the same scene with inverted gray tones, though the artist also flipped the positive image upside down as a mirrored form of its negative version. A centered partition, which partially conceals the rest of the gallery, displays 243 Queen’s Road East, Wanchai (day one, negative) (2005), a square image that balances the space. Its crossing architectural lines draw attention to a significant curve within. One sees part of an older Bauhaus-style building, a piece of Hong Kong’s history that has been razed, as the red-light district of Wan Chai undergoes major gentrification, often aided by controversial decisions made by the port city’s Urban Renewal Authority. 

The precise clarity in these black-and-white photographs defies the complex and extended process required for their production. Converting an entire room or even a whole apartment into a traditional camera obscura, or pinhole camera, Ching would completely cover every window to block out all external light, leaving only a small, circular hole that is exactly centered. He would then carefully pin or tape light-sensitive paper onto the inner wall. When the hole in the window is uncovered, it acts as an aperture to refract the outside image onto the tiled photo paper. To develop such a photograph is a slow process dependent on numerous factors, including the strength of natural light and the sensitivity of the photographic film. Development could take anywhere between two to twelve hours, during which any frequent movement causes a haze to form, leaving traces of ambiguity amongst the certain lines of man-made construction.   

Beyond the partition, Ching’s work becomes more integrative and experimental. In a split-screen projection, a single figure appears in one screen, the movements quickly recognized as one’s own. Discreet cameras placed around the room capture and incorporate audience members for the black-and-white, inverted video. This untitled inclusion in the exhibition, relaying activity in real time, signals the artist’s preoccupation with the impact of architecture on an individual’s spatial awareness and movement. 

The artist’s interest in human nature goes beyond contemplation; he actively engages local bureaucracy to effect social change. Not only does Ching capture images of neighborhoods that face demolition, he also lobbies for better rights enforcement for low-wage workers like security guards (Ching himself was once a guard at the Hong Kong Museum of Art). 

The elongated, scroll-like 239 Queen’s Road East, Wanchai II (negative) (2005) features a familiar scene in Hong Kong: a tall, leafy tree protrudes from concrete. Gnarled roots contrast against a building’s foundation, their organic forms intervening in sharp architectural lines. Unlike the first three pinhole images, this piece along with 239 Queen’s Road East, Wanchai I (negative) and 239 Queen’s Road East, Wanchai I (positive) (both 2005) are unframed, pinned to the wall, naively reminiscent of posters in a college student’s bedroom. However, their placement is hardly haphazard; it required the artist’s careful installation as all pins are placed in exactly the same space and at the same angle as during their initial creation. 

Despite his increasingly international profile, Luke Ching’s ability to maintain a keen awareness of his local environment speaks of his deep sense of community. He employs the ghostly nature of pinhole photography to trace human intervention: an open door or a blurred shape across the image encourages a lingering reflection of how perspectives change with time, which in Ching’s work is both literal and metaphorical. This body of work does justice to the steadily diminishing art of film photography, whilst subtly critiquing how the human desire to push forward may also obscure an appreciation of the past. 

Luke Ching’s “For now we see through a window, dimly” is on view at Gallery Exit, Hong Kong, until November 5, 2016. 

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