Text on the Table
1 The media released statistic related to the arrests: 225 people were arrested and prosecuted over offences related to the Occupy Movement and had already undergone legal proceeding; 91 people were arrested for alleged rioting during the Mong Kok unrest; 15 people were arrested in relation to unlawful assembly during their protest against northeastern New Territories Development Plan. (as of May, 2017) // On September 30, 2014, I joined the Occupy Movement. During the occupation, I spent most of my time sitting in the Mong Kok protest zone. The T-shirt with 689 written on it is the one I wore when accepting the Hong Kong Arts Development Award for Best Visual Artist in 2013; CY Leung was one of the guests in attendance. I wore this T-shirt until July of 2017.
2 I ]irst entered the court on June 15, 2015. On that day, I left my son with my mother-in-law, and walked around in Kwun Tong. I accidentally walked into a trial in the Kwun Tong Magistrates' Courts, and ever since, I became obsessed with attending court cases. I found peace when I was immersed in the cold, whitewashed, silent and solemn atmosphere of the courtroom. During the proceedings, I would take out my fountain pen and make automatic drawings in my notebook. These drawings brought me into a Taoist Cosmology trance-like state. I would read them and allow myself to be immersed into a meditative state of mind. I would enlarge these drawings, have them scanned onto the computer and zoom in on the screen; this process helps me to analyse my emotion by studying every nuance of the ripples and the transformation of the drawing. Month after month, my inner chaos gradually shifted, and I was ultimately able to return to the complicated world outside.
On November 8, 2015, I ]irst published a court-related work entitled 'Nightmare Wallpaper’ in the newspaper. It is a documentation of one trial of the Occupy Movement (KCCC1182/15). During the trial, memories from the Movement came ]looding back to me. The seating area in the courtroom was packed with participants from the Occupy Movement. When Benny, the hunger strike ]ighter walked into the room with his walking stick, he wore a T-shirt bearing the slogan, 'Being born in uncertain times carries certain responsibilities’. He wore the same T-shirt during the protest. I felt I had been transported back to the occupation zone. This repeated pattern on the wallpaper is a fragment from a drawing in my notebook. I made two rounded circles in the drawing, like mirrors re]lecting from one to another. In the drawing, you can see countless living organisms hidden within the wood grain on the spheres. A child’s face ]loated on the surface of the upper circle, palms joined together in the lower circle, vulva revealed; when the two circles are viewed together, they resemble a Buddha statue in deep meditation. The ]igure in the newspaper is Benny; he appears like a statue of Buddha that exists in my subconsciousness. He fasted for 40 days in the Admiralty protest zone. Many people were moved by his sacri]ice. Friends came to support him on the last day of his hunger strike; the person stood next to him is Fernando Cheung, who had been trying to persuade him to stop fasting. I took a photo with Fernando once, he was standing behind me and my ]igure blocked his out completely. The title of the photo is called 'Hero behind citizens’, which was published in a local magazine Fleurs des Lettres (September issue, 2012). It was during the time of the Legco election. I didn't reveal Fernando's name until four years later, when the next Legco election took place. // This yellow ribbon is the only object I picked up during the clearance of the Mong Kok protest zone. I have kept it since then, tied it to the doorknob in my room, and have not untied it since.
3 On April 20, 2016, Ming Pao Daily News ran a front-page report based on the Panama Paper investigation report, unveiling the scandal of tycoons, celebrities and politicians both in Hong Kong and China. On the same day, Keung Kwok-yuen, the Executive Chief Editor of the paper was abruptly ]ired. For many people , this ]iring signi]ied a threat to the freedom of press and an obstruction of editorial independence. Many staff members within Ming Pao were extremely upset, hanging protest banners stating 'obscurity' hung throughout the newspaper of]ice. Some columnists submitted blank columns in support of Keung, and others condemned the decision in their columns. Blank column protests lasted for nearly a month. I collected all the empty columns, which included, 11 pieces in total from April 21 to May 14. I assembled them as 'Blank Column Collage', and submitted it as my column for the Sunday edition of Ming Pao. In the image of ‘ Blank Column Collage’, you can see a solider standing with a steel helmet; there is a cross symbol on his military uniform. He holds a ri]le targeting the enemy from afar. He lifts his left leg marching forward, the binocular on the top symbolizing hope, right below there is a house symbolizing home. I made the drawing onto a stencil plate. I hope this graphic will become a symbol to defend and guard the freedom of press and independence of Ming Pao. // I was ]lipping through Ming Pao in the library and came across a reader's comment on Martin Lee's blank column, 'Its over, Amen.’
4 On July 29, 2015, Tuen Mun Court was ]looded by citizens who came to stand in solidarity with Ng LaiYing. She was accused of assaulting a police of]icer with her breasts during the Reclaim Hong Kong protest that took place on March 1st of the same year; I still cannot get over the image of her arrest, with blood running from her nose and lips. There were too many people at the hearing, and I was forced to squeeze myself into the space between the two doors in the courtroom, where I couldn’t see the female defendant but vaguely heard the voice of the judge and the lawyers. The lawyer of the accused Martin Lee walked right past me at one point. I was trapped in this tiny space for two hours, where I compiled these manuscripts. At ]irst, I was just scribbling a few lines, and then a nose emerged. I felt like I was drawing blood, a deliberate reaction to the image of the bleeding defendant. I drew her hair in the upper left corner, which also seemed bloody; it covered half of her face, and suddenly an eagle appeared standing on the bridge of her nose. For me, the eagle signi]ied the sky, a call to the heavens above, justice and trial. However, when I turned the drawing over, I began to see a human
]igure: his face was shaded as if it was covered; his right hand was hanging in the air, his left hand seemed to be throwing something; both his legs were lunging forward, and behind his back was a burning ]ire. For a while I couldn’t ]igure out what this imagery meant, and it wasn’t until I saw scenes from the Mong Kok unrest on TV on the ]irst night of the Chinese Lunar New Year in 2016 that I realized the hidden signs: mask, brick, ]ire, and protestor. I remembered another person who walked past me in that tiny space in Tuen Mun Court that day: he was wearing blue, with a slender build, and was in charge of delivering cold water to the courtroom. Later I recognized he was Ray Wong Toi-Yeung from Hong Kong Indigenous. He stood on top of a van and led the protest with a mike on the night of the Mong Kok con]lict, and was later charged with incitement to riot upon his arrest. Ng Lai-Ying (Case TMCC570/15), on the other hand, was convicted of assaulting the police and sentenced to jail for three months and ]ifteen days, but later successfully appealed against her sentence and served community service instead. Two fates are here tied together in one image, and locked up we three persons in the same time and space. I later laid the front and back sides of these drawings next to each other and repeated it to transform it into wallpaper. Not knowing the background story, one might actually see elegance and lavishness in it. On the night of February 8, 2016, protestors dug out many bricks on Sai Yeung Choi Street and used them to attack the police. Following the unrest, the government ]illed the remaining holes with cement, but this gesture only served to memorialize its occurance. I took this photo on the night of February 12. One month later, the cement ]iller was removed and replaced with new bricks. I noticed that the whole process underwent two stages: in the ]irst stage, they used bricks that had been dug out on night of the unrest to ]ill in the holes, which explained the messy brickwork in some sections of the street; in the second stage, they replaced the old bricks (20x9.6x5cm) with new ones bearing different dimensions (20x10x6.2cm), these were heavier and more dif]icult to remove. // The silhouette of the burning ]ire at the moment the brick was thrown.
5 On June 16, 2016, after having gone missing for several months, Lam Wing-kee, the founder of Causeway Bay Books, managed to escape police surveillance from China and hold a press brie]ing in Hong Kong, during which he admitted to being illegally abducted and held in con]inement by the mainland of]icials after his disappearance. The Causeway Bay Books disappearance exposed for the ]irst time the mainland Chinese authorities’ active cross-border law enforcement, which stirred anxiety amongst the Hong Kong public and doubt over the supposed “one country, two systems” principle. After this revelation, widespread media coverage raised public concern for Lam, emphasing that while allowing the public eye to serve as a protective shield, it also contributed to his loss of personal freedom, leaving his every move subject to public inspection. On June 17th, a political group launched a solidarity demonstration near the Liaison Of]ice of the Central People's Government in Western District. I stealthily moved next to Joshua Wong Chi-fung from Demosisto, gently appied a red dot sticker to his back, and quietly walked away. I published a full documentation of the event in the June 19th issue of Ming Pao, which was intended as a public warning that it wasn’t just Lam Wing-kee; anyone could easily fall victim to surveillance and attack. During the march on July 1st, 2017, I again left red dot stickers on demonstrators’ backs at random. It started raining as we reached Wan Chai, and I saw from afar Mr. Lam Wing-kee, now soaked in rain, holding a huge banner made by the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements stating “Release Liu Xiaobo immediately.” I walked over to him with my umbrella and held it over his head for a short walk; during the walk, I stealthily left my last red dot sticker on his back before I took off. At that moment, I too felt like a perpetrator. // I kept the umbrella which I had held over Mr. Lam Wing-kee along with the remaining red dot stickers in storage. The fourteen red dots on paper looked just like a person lying on the ground.
6 After the seven Hong Kong police of]icers were given a guilty sentence in case DCCC980/15, the media reported that there were over 30,000 serving and former police of]icers and their family holding a
mass rally to support these seven colleagues. At the rally, you could hear people condemning the judge with swear words, the fear of white terror spreading through society. It reminds me of a white drawing on the facade of the Hong Kong police headquarters. The drawing covered a graf]iti. But it has a prominent presence, seducing passersby to imagine its content. The colour patch has the shape of the Chinese character ‘ /solider’, and it also looks like a Tai Chi pose. At ]irst I thought the message hidden under the repainted patch would be some anti-government slogan. I looked it up on Google Maps and discovered that the original graf]iti appeared on the wall as follows: the words “CAT” and “Dog” are separated by an arrow pointed at the letter ‘H’, and on the right hand side is an ‘8’, in blue. If the “H” means heaven, and the “8” read as an eternal sign, the graf]iti means “Cat and Dog ascend to heaven”. In Chinese idiom we have “Hens and dogs ascend to heaven”, but not cats. The sign must have a secret meaning behind. After my article was published in Ming Pao, some friends told me that this graf]iti had previously been spotted everywhere, others told me they knew the creator personally. // This article peaked my interest in exploring three subjects: the ]irst is to investigate the existing graf]iti outside of every police station’s wall; the second is research covered graf]iti and to document and publish them; the third is to make the repainted patch into a stencil plate, overlaying it with a different form.
7 Among the nine defendants of the Mong Kok riot, court case (DCCC901/16), I had the most vivid impression on defendant No. 3. He always left by himself after the trials. They recognised me from an episode on RTHK’s 'Hong Kong Connection' then they started talking to me. Sometimes I would have a meal with No.3 and began collecting spoons he used. He noticed it and it didn’t seem bother him. I washed and marked all the spoons, and put them in my kitchen. My family doesn’t notice they are sharing the utensils with him, I am the only one who knows. I would like to plan a communal feast and invite reputable people in the city, when I have collected a certain amount of utensils. Spoons in Christianity are a liturgical implement, a medium for sharing the pain of Christ in the Holy Sacri]ice. (Refer to Manuscript: No.DCCC901-16#15
8 On June 15, 2017, after I went to Wan Chai to show solidarity with the nine activists from the Occupy Central movement (Case DCCC480/17), I headed over to Tonning Mansion on Tonkin Street in Sham Shui Po by myself and stayed there until the light on the X ]loor of Building A went on. Usually, I would walk along Castle Peak Road and past the Hephzibah Evangelistic Center to catch the metro at the Sham Shui Po station to return home, but I went the opposite direction toward the Cheung Sha Wan station on this particular night. Nearly half way there, I saw someone I thought I knew from afar, from the white suit he was wearing, I was almost sure he was No.4 in the case DCCC901/16. He seemed to be waiting for someone, so I waited for some time to pass; there wasn’t any reason for me to do this, I just thought it was such a coincidence. After his friend showed up, to my surprise, they headed toward the direction of the court. So, I followed them into a restaurant and sat right in front of him, which he didn’t notice. After they ]inished their meal and left, I moved over to his seat and took a straw he used from his tray. When I saw him sitting at the defendant’s area in the West Kowloon Court the next day, I didn’t dare to raise my head and look at him, for I was afraid of being recognized, so I looked down and focused on drawing in my notebook instead. I drew a ]igure of him and wrote down the events from last night, together with a few lines to form the shape of a ]lower. As I ]illed the middle part in black, a pro]ile appeared in the left half of the drawing, while the right half began to look like a melon, or a severed hand with a hook. But as I turned the drawing upside down, the part I had ]illed in with black became a walking person: he looked as if he was trying to wrap his upper body in his coat in order to protect himself from a heavy wind, and there was a soldier following him from far behind. That was certainly me, but the person walking with his head covered was also me. (Refer to Manuscript: No.DCCC901-16#12) I divided the works I created in court into four categories: seals, nightmare wallpapers, sacred objects and manuscripts. I made a cast iron sculpture of the ]igure walking with his head covered; like a sacred
object, and the shape and weight of the object helped me calm my mind and dive faster and deeper into meditation. I named it Sacred Object (No. DCCC901-16 # 12): The Person Walking with His Head Covered, with the serial number DCCC901-16#12/170616(11:49-1:56)/DC(WK)/J:KWK/P:HKSAR/ D:MJT-XXX-CCH-HKS-FTH-CWC-TKC-LCH-LWW-YCF-XXX/Riot. Section D in the serial number stands for Defendant(s) and is composed of the abbreviation of their English names. There were 11 defendants involved in this case, but only nine of them showed up in court, so I replaced the names of the other two with XXX instead: one of them ]led to Taiwan, and the other one pleaded guilty. The one who ]led to Taiwan is a girl named Lee Sin Yi. She is 18 years old and she is wanted by the Hong Kong police department. In a video she recorded on August 22, 2017 and uploaded to YouTube, she stated: “In my heart, I have actually long ceased to believe in the existence of the rule of law in Hong Kong…the government’s prosecution of those involved in the Fishball Revolution was all part of a political scheme.” The girl I drew in Nightmare Wallpaper (No. DCCC901-16 # 8): A Dialogue between an Angel and a Girl is her. The pattern is composed of a kneeling angel and a lost puppy: a young girl hides in the empty space between the angel and the puppy, and the words coming out of the angel’s mouth in black become the girl’s eyes.
9 The review of the sentencing of the Reclaim Civic Center protest (CAAR4/16) was scheduled for 2:30 PM at the High Court on August 17th, 2017. I arrived in advance at the court at 12:30 PM, only to be informed that all of the courtroom seats for the hearing had been taken by 12PM, and the best I could get was lobby seat No.78. Over hundreds of supporters and journalists were there; they ]irst gathered outside the court, where the three defendants (Joshua Wong, Nathan Law and Alex Chow) chanted a slogan often heard during the Occupy protests: “Hope is in the people, change will be brought by protests.” I noticed that Joshua Wong and Nathan Law were wearing the same T-shirt with a broken Lady Justice printed on top, but to me she looked more like a suffering Jesus Christ. I sat through the whole trial in the lobby, and took four pages of notes, documenting the live proceedings in words and capturing my more subtle emotional ]luctuations during the hearing through drawings. Minutes before the court’s announcement of their decision, the three activists suddenly emerged into the lobby from the courtroom in smile (I assumed they went the restroom), and soon returned to the courtroom still smiling. As they returned to their seats, the crowd gave them a round of applause that lasted for about ten seconds and told them to “stay strong,” to which Joshua Wong bowed and showed his gratitude. In the end, the court found them guilty and announced their prison sentences, which were six months, eight months and seven months respectively, with immediate implementation. After a sigh of grief, everyone became silent; the judge left, and the protestors started yelling: “The people are resisting, we are fearless.” I thank the three of them for showing everyone a warm smile at the end, which, like a speck of light, managed to give us a gleam of hope. // Joshua Wong and Alex Chow were then taken to the Pik Uk Prison. Since I live right across from Pik Uk Prison, I began to think of them as I went in and out of my place, and so I soon started to write letter to them with my son. Recently, I provided services to deliver straw from Pik Uk Prison and opened a live stream channel to broadcast the moonlight from outside of the jail.
10 The Supreme Court Case (HCMP789/15) dealt with several cases of contempt of law during the clearing of the Occupy Mong Kok movement on November 27th, 2014. I noticed how the confrontation between the protestors and the police during the clearance found its expression in the changing shape of the crowd, so I drew it on paper, and used the material to develop another pattern: the white part visually resembles a dancer performing with a lion standing on his hand in a circus, with the moon marking its highest point; the part in black depicts a forest inhabited by birds and trees, with a female servant standing in the middle. As a whole, the drawing is a pro]ile of a woman who is looking to her left. (Refer to Manuscript: No. HCMP789-15#14) The round platform at Civic Square extends circumferentially around the ]lagpole at its center. The ]lying ]lag is a symbol of sovereignty, but the simultaneous hanging of two ]lags in present-day Hong Kong lends a sense of disorder to this round platform. The demonstrators sat on the platform and ]illed
the circle, each of them facing outward as if radiating from the center, sitting quietly as if in a defense camp. The police used bicycles to form another circle around these protestors to counteract their force. These policemen continued to tighten the circumference of the circle until the forces of offense and defense reached a state of equilibrium, and it was in the gap between the two forces where their most intense confrontations took place.
11 I discovered plenty of stained spots on the ]loor of Western District, and one of them resembled A Man Walking with His Head Covered which I drew in court; the other two patterns were discovered on the ]loor at the front and the back entrance of the Liaison Of]ice of the Central People's Government, with one of them looking like a jelly]ish and the other like a lizard. // In 2017, I ran two sketching sessions outside the front entrance of the Liaison Of]ice of the Central People's Government in two days, during which I used white paint to paint the national ]lag and the national emblem on black paper. The security guards and policeman were closely observing my actions, and complimented my drawings “so abstract!” On the second day, I returned, the female guard warned me, “Please don’t spill the bottle again today”. // I found a white candle which had been disposed nearby the Liaison Of]ice after the protest.
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2014 9 30
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3 2016 4 20
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2017 7 3
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(No.DCCC901-16#8):
2017 8 22
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9 2017 8 17
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10 (HCMP789/15)
2014 11 27
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