Where I am living, new construction appeared uphill and the old buildings downhill were demolished; newcomers moved in and old dwellers were relocated. I find life fluid and full of changes, you never know if things will change for the better or the worse. For the people who live here though, their daily lives do not undergo much change. In Habitation, I visited ten peer friends’ homes, shooting video and recording their family history. We can all enter and understand someone’s life by peering into their personal surroundings. Going through one home and to another, I think that the horizontal camera movement is the most objective way of viewing. It does not emphasize the existence of the lens and does not disturb the original environment. It feels like “passing through a place”. Time and space here are in a loop, which is likely our daily life that we can’t distinguish today or tomorrow.

Circulation, extension, and unconscious flow are important elements in my past artworks. The state of seemingly free but constantly repeated trapped represents the spiritual embarrassment faced by people in contemporary life. Life is not really poetic for most people. In reality, we have to deal with the basic issues of survival. Every day is repetitive and trivial, without any poetic and artistic beauty. Habitation is an experiment between video art and documentary. There is nothing superfluous, trying to return to the essence of seeing. This is very close to reality and probably not something that can be expressed by paintings and sculptures but videography. It can’t refer to any literature but only the living stories to conduct the work.

在我居住的地區，山上有些東西剛興建好，山下有些東西剛被拆卸，新的人遷來，舊的人被趕走。我覺得生活中很多事物都在轉變，人處於浮動的狀態，不知會往好處或壞處發展。可是對於在這裡居住的人而言，仍然要如常過活，好像沒有多大分別。在《安居》中，我到訪十名同輩友人的家，拍下錄像，同時記下他們的家庭故事。從他們的家看他們的生活，同時從新審視我們共有的的生活環境和經驗。穿過一個家居，到另一個家居。水平移動的運鏡帶觀者客觀地觀看，不強調鏡頭存在，不打擾原來環境，感覺是「經過」一個地方似的。時間和空間在錄像中不斷循環，如我們日常生活狀態，分不出今天或明天。

現在回看，循環、伸延、無意識的流動是我過往創作中重要元素，這些都是一種看似自由，卻不斷重復被困的曖昧狀態，指向當代生活中人所面對精神上的困窘。生活無關詩意。現實中我們面對的是生活基本的問題，每天日常大多是重複而瑣碎的，更連繫不上藝術的詩意和美感。《安居》是一次處於錄像藝術和紀錄片之間的實驗，沒有多餘的東西，嘗試回歸觀看的本質。這極貼近現實的東西，大概不是畫作、雕塑可以表達的事，也參考不到任何文獻，能參考的只有人們活生生的故事和各種生活影像，才構成作品本身。

Wong Pak Hang, Samson (b. 1995, Hong Kong), is an artist working across mixed media and digital media, including photography, video, painting, and installation. He graduated with a fine art degree from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2018 and is currently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Media degree at the City University of Hong Kong. His recent works explore everyday experiences in both real and virtual realms, reflecting on civilisation and human nature through a humanistic lens.

Wong received sponsorship from WMA, Hong Kong, to attend FotoFest in Houston (2022) and was awarded the “2046 Fermentation + Fellowship” by Para Site, Hong Kong (2022). His first solo exhibition, Screensalver, was supported by the “New Light Exhibition Scheme” from Lumenvisum, Hong Kong (2020). His work was also shortlisted in the Media Arts category for the 24th ifva Awards (2019).