The Lost Roads (2008 - )

A road / passage is defined by the daily behavior and habit of human being, on the other hand, the human existence transcends the merely geographic location and transforms it from “place” into “space”. Michel de Certeau first creates the term “Narrative action”, which relates to the human behavior that can generate stories. He claims that is a practice of organizing and developing space effectively, in the sense that it rephrases the “place” in a particular time frame and makes it relational.

In the past thirty years, the Hong Kong government has been pruning over 300 roads in the record of Highways department, the official reason is large scale construction projects, including domestic housing and commercial buildings. The post-colonial city planning forces the “space” to push away history, as a result, stories are lost, and consequently human behavior is restrained by the stereotype of metropolitan city.

I document the lost roads sites, and present the relationship between the missing and existing stories. The non-durable quality of the photographs enhances the idea of this piece as a city monument.

道路的使用由人類的行為和習性而界定，人的存在為其純粹物理性上提供了「歷史」與「故事」。Michel de Certeau 將可產生故事的行為命名作 Narrative Action，其對於城市的重要性在於能將「地方」轉化成具時間性和關聯性的「空間」，並有效地進行管理和發展。

過去三十年香港政府刪除了超過三百條街道，原因不外乎是建設大型住宅或商廈。人們不再置身經年月發展及帶歷史感的「空間」，而只是一式一樣地被規劃出來，故事之佚失成為人們行為趨單一化的後果。

我用一個直接的方法去記下街道遺址，尋找已淡出和現存的故事之間的關係，並利用相片這媒介的不經久性去塑造城市的紀念碑。