Today, as ARCHIVE is published, it is also the date, two years ago, when Holly left us. She passed away on September 13, 2024.
To remember her, this year I published three volumes of photographs from a trip we took together in 2011: 2011 Hong Kong, Holly and Ka-sing, with Their Friends; 2011 Hong Kong, Holly and Ka-sing, with Family; and 2011 Tokyo. The books arrived from the printer two days ago.
It was a memorable journey, one that Holly would always have loved to share and remember.
After our family relocated to Toronto in 1997, Holly returned to Hong Kong only three times. The first was in 1998. Our former studio had been transformed into a gallery devoted solely to photography, and together with it we established the NuNaHeDuo Centre of Photography (NCP). We hoped to take what we had established in Hong Kong further, on a larger scale, and to develop it into something wider and deeper. Holly’s first return was for the grand opening of NCP.
Her second return was in 2011, thirteen years later.
Hong Kong was, for Holly, both distant and close. There was gratitude, but also a certain melancholy. Perhaps, deep in her heart, Hong Kong remained partly a mirage of an earlier time: the mystery of relatives and family, almost like a novel. She had been brought up there; her roots were there.
And yet, after she left in 1997, she seemed to have gradually disappeared from the consciousness of Hong Kong’s cultural scene. She was invited to none of the representative events, large or small, and was almost completely out of sight.
I remember a publication titled CONTACT, subtitled 52 Hong Kong Contemporary Photographers, which brought together a wide range of photographers—from older and younger generations, established and emerging, working in fine art, journalism and professional photography. Holly was not included.
It was not until the opening of M+ in 2021, when The Great Pageant Show, one of only three works by Holly in the museum’s collection, was included in the inaugural exhibition, that her work suddenly received considerable attention. It was almost like a rediscovery: The Art of Conceptual Photography Pioneers; The Hollian Thesaurus: A Piece of Hong Kong Photography History; followed by her exhibition at WMA Space and the Lee Ka-sing & Holly Lee Archive organized by Asia Art Archive. I have to acknowledge all of this.
The Great Pageant Show was first exhibited in Yokohama at Tower Gallery in 1996, in an exhibition of Hong Kong contemporary photography curated by Iizawa Kohtaro. In 1997, it was shown at Hong Kong City Hall in the exhibition On Hong Kong, and subsequently travelled to a number of cities in Asia. Yet despite these exposures, the work did not seem to leave much of a trace in the memory of Hong Kong people. Does this mean that Hong Kong people are forgetful? Only partly. Perhaps they retrieve their memories like withdrawing cash from a bank, according to the urgency of the moment.
But after all this, did anybody really care about her work in the period that followed?
Holly left Hong Kong and lived in Toronto for thirty years. She continued making her creative work until the final moments of her life. Those thirty years were more than half of her fifty-year creative life. A great many works were made, and many ideas, projects and experiments unfolded during that second phase of her creative life.
How many people knew about them? How many cared?
I once raised this question with people within the field. The answer I received was simply that she was living outside the “parameter” of Hong Kong. In this sense, Hong Kong may be more conservative than its neighbours, such as Japan and Taiwan. Holly was not a Canadian artist either. She was not brought up here, and her cultural and personal roots were elsewhere.
The 2011 trip was particularly memorable because it was not undertaken for any specific purpose. It was not a work trip, nor was there anything we needed to accomplish. We simply went back to see family, to meet friends after many years apart, and to spend time together. The trip lasted approximately ten days. On our return, we made a brief stop in Tokyo, where we met friends including Shimao Shinzo, Ushioda Tokuko and Iizawa Kohtaro.
Because of the archive project, I have recently begun revisiting my library of photographs made over the years. I came across these snapshots from the 2011 trip.
For these three volumes, I basically kept the photographs in their original order, separating the photographs with family into a volume of their own. The Hong Kong volume with friends is particularly like a raw, unedited documentary short film.
It begins with a brief visit to Sabrina’s office and Ping-kwan’s home in Causeway Bay. Another day brought us together at Kin Wai’s Kin’s Kitchen (留家廚房), with several close friends. On another day, we gathered at Ching Ping’s gallery with a group of photographers, followed by dinner at a local Chiu Chow restaurant. The series closes with a daytime gathering of a wider circle of friends at Yellow Door (黃色門), a former space in Central Kin Wai had operated his kitchen in the early 2000s. Basically, these were all gatherings of friends.
There was one thing they had in common: everyone was in a good mood. There was laughter everywhere. So young.
Today, looking at these photographs, we know what was still ahead of us then. My father passed away during COVID. Holly is no longer here. Ping-kwan had already left us in 2013. In this volume, I took many photographs of Ping-kwan. And many of the friends in these photographs are now scattered across different parts of the world.
There will never be another photograph interwoven in quite this way.
After finishing the book, I wrote a short piece in Chinese describing this as a gathering that happened by chance, but not accidentally. Looking at it now, it feels like a small fragment of art history—a micro-fragment, preserved almost without intention. The Tokyo volume extends this feeling further.
The gatherings brought together crossed borders reflections from projects, activities and friendships in decades. Among those in the book, were photographers from different generations and practices: fine-art photographers, professionals and photojournalists, established figures and rising stars. In another circle were choreographer, fashion designer, curator, writer, poet, artist, art consultant, art critic and food critic. Some of the best of Hong Kong, from a particular generation, happened to be there.
After I finished the book, I put an online version together to share with friends. Blues Wong commented simply: “Avengers!” I understood what he meant, particularly in relation to the gathering of photographers.
Fifteen years later, in today we look at these photographs with a sense of remembrance. Fifty years from now, they will be looked at differently. Perhaps then, what was simply a gathering of friends will have become a small piece of history.
(September 13, 2026)