Parade: Almond Chu

To back this project ...

is to fund the production of the publication, Parade. In return you become a collector of my photographic works and the publication.

Hong Kong’s style of Parade

The Parade series started in 2004 amid the voices of opposing the legislation of Basic Law Article 23 where street activities in Hong Kong reached a new height after the 1997 handover. Spanning a celebratory parade led by pro-communist crowds to the annual July 1 protest and the Occupy Movement in 2014, the streets of Hong Kong are filled with diversified propaganda that represent a tint of freedom of speech. For years, Almond’s work has explored the ecology of society and issues of individual existence.

Artistic concept

As the world is unifying, our thinking also tends to be steered in one direction. People have become faceless, unconscious, with no personal opinion. We blindly follow trends, repeat what others have said, and are so unclear of our values of living that our existence fills with nihilism.

• «It would be very easy to explain the aesthetic ideas behind Almond Chu’s photography from a Chinese point of view. One is tempted to subsume the recurrent motifs and devices of black and white, of square and round, of man and woman, of life and death under the principle of Yin and Yang.» – Wolfgang Kubin (Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn)

The book

All of the locations for Parade reveal social issues, such as the old Star Ferry Pier in Central (Parade 5), where people protested against the demolition of the cultural icon; the headquarters of Dagongbao (Parade 1), the mouthpiece of the People’s Republic of China government; and Wanchai Pier (Parade 3) where dozens of Korean farmers jumped into the sea in 2005 when the WTO meetings were taking place in Hong Kong.

Filmmaker and designer Tan Khiang, also a friend, will design the book.

The Parade book will be hardcover, in a limited edition, enclosed in an acrylic case, and published by MCCM Creations, an independent Hong Kong publisher dedicated to art, design, architecture and urban culture in Hong Kong.

• Specification / H285mm x W385mm (landscape), 78pp, hard cover
• Print run / 300 copies limited edition (include 30 acrylic case editions)
• Language / English & Traditional Chinese

On my bookshelf, I have two other publications that I would like to present as a reflection of my career in creative photography –The Urbanites (2013) and Hong Kong Photographers Three – Almond Chu (2009). They are only available in a small quantity, and I invite you to support this rare collection.

Limited edition archival art print

I have also selected Curious Police (Parade 9) for the archival art print to offer as a way to thank you for your support. The selected image will be archival inkjet printed on art paper, of 30 editions. I hope you will appreciate this limited edition of Parade 9 together with the Parade case edition available only on WeMakeIt.com.

Exhibition – September 2015

Parade series will be exhibited at La Galerie in Hong Kong in September. Run by Marie-Florence Gros and Cyril Delettre, two French gallerists, La Galerie dedicated to photography. If you are in the city, please show your support to both the publication and the exhibition.

About Almond Chu

A graduate of the Tokyo College of Photography in 1986, I set up my studio in 1993 and have been undertaking art and commercial projects.

I have participated in exhibitions internationally – Canada, China, Denmark, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Russia, and Singapore, and my next stop is France. My work has also featured in many international publications and recently nominated in Prix Pictet 2015.

In 1993, I was awarded the Agfa Fellowship Young Photographer Award by the Asian Cultural Council and worked in New York that year. In 2004, I was invited to speak at the Internationally Literary and Aesthetic Symposium organised by Bonn University and the Art & Exhibition Hall of Deutschland. In 2005, I founded the art photography organisation pH5 Photo Group in Hong Kong and in 2007, the art photography magazine pHi, for which I was appointed editor-in-chief.

My works are in the collections of the Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong Heritage Museum, Guangdong Museum of Art, University Museum and Art Gallery of the University of Hong Kong, OCT Art & Design Gallery Shenzhen, Osage Gallery, Lumenvisum Gallery, Lee Hysan Foundation, Deutsche Bank, Peninsula Hotel Hong Kong, Mandarin Oriental Hotel Taipei, Hotel LKF, New World Development Co Ltd, Cathay Pacific Airways, Agfa-Gavert (HK) Ltd and several private collectors.

Collaborators

MCCM Creations / Tan Khiang / Bao Kun（鮑昆）/ Wendy Wo / La Galerie