Lam Tung Pang: Looking at Looking
By Chloe Chu
It was July 1, the 23rd anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover from the United Kingdom to China, when I headed to the Hong Kong Museum of Art to see Lam Tung Pang’s video installation Image-coated (2019). Projected onto a translucent screen over windows with panoramic views of Victoria Harbour, the central video is a bricolage of animated charcoal drawings, manipulated camera footage, and found images forming a multilayered, fantastical chronicle delineating the port-city’s history through its morphing landscape. As a rough contour of an undeveloped Victoria Harbour faded from the screen and the foreboding sound of rumbling thunder filled the space, I walked toward the uncovered windows where Lam had drawn raindrops with a whiteboard marker. Outside, gliding across the waters, was a behemoth barge stacked with 80 shipping containers bearing banners that altogether read: “In celebration of the National Security Law.” The historic addendum, prohibiting vaguely defined acts of secession, subversion, terrorism, or foreign intervention, had come into effect just the night prior, muzzling Hong Kong’s freedom of speech and pro-democracy movement. Lam’s invocation of stormy weather symbolically and prophetically captured the city’s doubly heavy uncertainty that day.