Concept: The Great Wall was built to protect and to unify its people who lived behind the wall. However, it came at the cost of over a million civilians. In modern society, walls still serve their primal role as shelters, but they have also become the cradle of aspirations for families.

As society progresses, the process of removing older walls becomes an expected part of urban development. Yet, this transformation often leading to the relocation of those with fewer choices. Reflecting on my family's experience in Hong Kong in the 70s, the government relocated my parents from the city center to a housing project on the outskirts. My father complained but Hong Kong blossomed, and my family stood as proud bearers of its success.

Observing numerous urban redevelopments in Beijing, I photographed random walls being torn down and reconstructed them into harmonic entities, symbolizing the conflicting concepts of individual and collective identities and rights. These images serve as a poetic documentation of present-day Beijing while evoking memories of my childhood in Hong Kong

Technical: Each image is created as digital photomontage which combined more than 20 individual images. The file size is 40”x28” at 300 dpi which offers excellent image details. I traveled in Beijing 2016 for an artist-in- residence, and accumulated an image bank of thousands of images. I came up with this concept during Covid lockdown.