Condo Convos

Condo Convos came from the photographer’s conversations with her parents and non-local friends in their apartments. Interspacing interview extracts and her own keepsakes, this book explores the idea of home, intimacy, migration and belonging.

“I’m leaving,” she let it out.

I wasn’t surprised. Most of my friends were not born or raised in Hong Kong but found a temporary home here. Non-local, gang piao, expats, third culture kids, immigrants – not one label can encompass their diversity. What unites them is probably their state of floating across cultural and national boundaries, constantly navigating the treacherous waters of “belonging”.

Their experience forms a stark contrast to my own, having had the same address to return to all my life.

Since 2020, a time when many locals pondered the notion of “home”, I have been photographing these friends in their own apartments, over conversations about the city, cultures, our own lives... before they moved on. It was refreshing to see my hometown through the lens of “the Other”. Or perhaps I simply needed an excuse to say a long goodbye before their departures.

After photographing a dozen friends, I photographed my own parents who had immigrated to Hong Kong from the mainland in the 1980s before we started renovating the home we’ve lived in since I was born.

The story of movement goes on.