Photobook Club #26: Imagining Southeast Asia Through Photobooks

Date: 17 August 2023
Venue: Lumenvisum, Hong Kong
Host: Photobook Club Hong Kong (Phoboko 閾限谷)

At the invitation of Michelle Chan from Photobook Club Hong Kong (Phoboko 閾限谷), I helped to organise a sharing session concerning photobooks about Southeast Asia. Phoboko is a platform that uses photobooks to connect people and generate dialogue. It organises a series of intimate gatherings that revolves around the different issues relating to the photobook form. In this iteration, I proposed four photobooks for discussion. They are: Borneo Scene (published in 1979 by Anna Photo Company, Kuching) by K.F. Wong, Shauna (self published in Singapore in 2014) by Sean Lee, We Are Like Air (published in 2018 by WE Press, HK) by Xyza Cruz Bacani, and We Were Farmers (self published in Singapore in 2021) by Ore Huiying. I am the photo editor for Shauna and We Were Farmers.

Before the session, Michelle and I agreed on the general direction of the discussion. We hope to encourage the participants to use the photobooks as a way to visualise the lives and places across Southeast Asia. Phoboko launched an application call and limited the number of participants to ten. Each of them had to pay a small fee to participate.

Opening the session on 17 August, I provided a very brief introduction to each publication. In line with the usual format of Phoboko gatherings, the participants split into four groups to discuss the photobook of their choice, responding to the general direction that we set out. After half an hour, the participants reconvened to present the outcome of their discussions. Closing the session, I discussed each photobook in greater detail, responding to the participants’ observations and raising some questions regarding the publications.

[All documentation photographs courtesy of Phoboko]