Then We Keep Living (2020–ongoing) is a two-phase photographic project that traces the socio-political upheavals in Hong Kong and the ensuing diaspora in Australia. Part of the project was shot during the 2019–2020 democratic uprising in Hong Kong, and was continued after the artist’s relocation amid a broader wave of exodus. The work contemplates a time of profound transformation in post-2019 Hong Kong marked by shifting social, cultural, and political landscapes, while unpacking the echoes of personal and collective trauma, diasporic experience, and the artist’s shifting relationship with a disappearing homeland.
Chris Siu was born in Hong Kong in 2001. Currently, he works as an artist and photographer in Naarm Melbourne. Informed by the traditions of documentary photography, Siu’s current work investigates the intricate relationships that lie within his surrounding social landscapes. His practice is profoundly influenced by the flux of sociopolitical happenings in his homeland Hong Kong and his ever-changing place within it. Through exploring notions of layered histories and geopolitics, Chris’s work seeks to offer a reflection on personal and communal experience, pivoting around representations of civil unrest, diasporic experience, cultural displacement and marginality within contemporary existence.
Siu’s work has been shown throughout Australia, including as part of Helpmann Academy’s 2023 cross-institutional graduate exhibition at Adelaide Contemporary Experimental (ACE), Hatched: National Graduate Show 2023 at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, as well as Angkor Photo Festival (Cambodia), Head On Festival, Nexus Arts, PhotoAccess, and The Mill Adelaide.
Copyright © Chris Siu, all rights reserved
