by Jonathan Thomson /
Hong Kong in Transition 1995 – 2020: An open access photographic archive for anyone interested in Hong Kong and its history
The word “monument” comes directly from the Latin monumentum, literally “something that reminds”, and is derived from monere: to remind. This etymology suggests a monument allows us to see the past in order to better visualise what might come in the future. The alternative, proposed by philosopher George Santayana, is that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
However, not all monuments are sculptural, and Hong Kong now has another, in the virtual archive of more than 40,000 photographs by Hong Kong photographer David Clarke that has been established as an adjunct to the Hong Kong Art Archive of the Department of Fine Arts at the University of Hong Kong. Beginning in the mid-1990s, Clarke has been documenting and analysing Hong Kong’s transition beyond colonial rule in words and pictures, both as a professor of art history at the University of Hong Kong and as a photographer.
His archive Hong Kong in Transition 1995-2020 is intended as an open access resource for anyone interested in Hong Kong and its history. As a personal archive by just one photographer it naturally discloses his personal interests and aesthetic, including his enduring interest in nocturnes, shadows, roads, hillsides, flowers, trees, outlying islands, the built environment, scaffolding, Hong Kong under construction, the Lamma Channel and butterflies, together with his personal and professional engagement with artists, academics and the Hong Kong art establishment. But the archive is also a resource for its users to conduct their own historical investigations and construct their own stories about Hong Kong.
For Clarke, photography is the perfect tool because of its indelible link to particular times and places, forever belonging to the moment and location where the shutter was open to the light; its repleteness, with information contained in every part of the image, inadvertently gathering data its maker was not aware of at the time the shutter was open; its concern with concrete reality; and its perfect memory.
The handover of Hong Kong on 1 July 1997 is just one specific moment in the city’s transition that continues to unfold in both predictable and unpredictable ways. Clarke’s archive documents this process; its strength as a historical record is not contained in just a few iconic images which may be subject to reinterpretation over time but in its thousands of tiny details. Understanding comes not just from an individual image but across the sequence as a whole.
Clarke’s archive can be likened to a jigsaw puzzle as it appears when it is first tipped out of its box, or perhaps to a collection of multicoloured mosaic tiles or pixels – except that each piece is precisely labelled with title and date – that can be assembled by each individual user into a complete picture. What that picture is will depend on the question that each user asks, but within each will be evidence of Hong Kong’s community cultural development and the tone of its political consciousness at a particular place and time.
Clarke’s approach to photography is personal and frankly subjective, and clearly distinguishable from that of photojournalists, who usually focus on the legible representation within a single image of distinct topics of current relevance. He does not seek to glamorise his subject or to claim an objective perspective on it. His practice is based on finding images in the course of of his daily life, happening upon them in the moment, rather than hunting them down or framing them in a self-conscious way.
Clarke’s archive makes no claims for completeness or inclusiveness. His photographs are based on where he happened to be on any particular day and are made within the constraints of having a life and a busy full-time job. But for all of that, he is still an eyewitness to history – and for now, that history is well preserved.
香港過渡（1995-2020年）這是一個公開的照片檔案庫，供任何對香港及其歷史感興趣的人士使用
「紀念碑」一詞源自拉丁語的monumentum，字面意思是「提醒事物的東西」，字根是monere，即提醒。這個詞源說明，紀念碑可讓我們看到過去，才可更好地想像未來可能發生的事情。就如哲學家喬治．桑塔亞納（George Santayana）認為，遺忘過去的人註定要重蹈覆轍。
然而，並非所有紀念碑都是雕塑品，香港也有不少例子。香港攝影師祈大衛（David Clarke）為香港大學藝術系的香港藝術檔案館建立附屬虛擬檔檔庫，展出超過40000張照片。從九十年代中期開始，祈大衛以香港大學藝術史教授和攝影師的身修份，以文字和圖片記錄和分析香港從殖民統治的過渡。
其檔案庫《香港過渡》（1995-2020年）屬於開放資源，供任何對香港及其歷史感興趣的人士使用。照片集由祈大衛一人建立，不難從中發現他的個人興趣和審美，他對夜曲、陰影、道路、山坡、花卉、樹木、離島、建築環境、棚架、施工中的香港、南丫海峽和蝴蝶都有濃厚的興趣，以及他與不同藝術家、學者和香港藝術機構的個人和專業聯繫。而一般人也可利用檔案庫進行歷史研究，並構建專屬的香港故事。
對祈大衛來說，攝影是完美的工具，與特定的時間和地點有著不可磨滅的聯繫，捕捉按下快門的瞬間和地點，圖像的每個部分都充滿訊息，攝影師無意地捕捉快門打開時的一切，攝影是對具體現實的關注及其完美的記憶。
1997年7月1日香港主權移交只是香港轉型中的一個特定時刻，其後的變化在意料之中，亦在意料之外。祈大衛的檔案庫記錄這一過程，歷史記錄的特徵很明顯，不單可見於一些標誌性的圖像，這些圖像可能會隨著時間的推移而對觀眾有不同啟發，還有其中數千個微小的細節。理解不僅來自單個圖像，而且橫跨整個系列。
祈大衛的檔案庫猶如一個拼圖玩具剛從盒子取出，或者是一系列彩色的馬賽克瓷磚或圖元，而每件作品都附有標題和日期，可以由每個使用者拼湊成一個完整的圖片。圖片將取決於每個使用者提出的問題，但每個問題都將是香港社區文化發展的證據，以及其在特定地點和時間的政治意識基調。
祈大衛擁有獨特的攝影方法，坦率地主觀，與攝影記者明顯不同，後者通常專注於在當前相關的不同主題的個別圖像所明確的含義。他不尋求美化他的主題或標榜其客觀的觀點。他的實踐是基於在日常生活中尋找圖像，當下發生的事務，而不是以自我意識的方式捕捉或建立圖像。
祈大衛的檔案庫沒有宣揚完整性或包容性。他的照片是他剛巧在某日身處某地時拍下，並且是在生活和繁忙的全職工作的限制下拍攝。但儘管如此，他仍然是歷史的目擊者，就目前而言，這段歷史是保存完好。