The Memorial (2019)
Stop motion animation projection on wax
16:9 | HD | B&W | 1’17” loop | Stereo
Photographic installation (Print on ceramics) ｜ 20L x 15W cm
During the Japanese Occupation period, the Imperial Japanese Army built monuments and shrines across all occupied areas and colonies, as a commemoration of their loss in warfare and also to demonstrate the power of Imperialism. A “Japanese War Memorial” was built on the mountain on Hong Kong Island, remains of dead Japanese soldiers, including the notorious Kamikaze Bombers, were stored in the memorial.
After retrieving Queen Victoria state in 1945, the colonial government was in a situation of austerity, due to the outflow of resources during the war, and the many things to be done after it. Even so, Public Monuments Committee unanimously decided to pay for the destruction of the ‘Japanese War Memorial’. At 4.29 in the afternoon of 26th February 1947, the memorial was destroyed with explosives. Very minimal records of such destruction were remained, as the British considered that was a shame to their sovereignty and colonization. In 2019, I managed to excavate a roll of 16mm film from the classified list of records, which was not open for public viewing. However, due to the misgovernance of Hong Kong Public Records Office, there was no adequate equipment to view the film in Public Records Office. So, in order to overcome the management discrepancy and emphasize the representation of these valuable records, I divergently trans-mediate the film into prints frame by frame, and re-edit the sequence through printing, rearranging and scanning.
