#023 Fion Hung Ching Yan (b.1993), Fish is a terrible creature.

FION HUNG CHING YAN (HK, 1993)

Fish is a terrible creature (2020)

Excellent Fine Art Paper on an inkjet Printer

100 x 80 cm / 39.3 x 31.4 in

The Song of a Young Nutter

I’m born and raised in Hong Kong, however, most of my family members are migrants from different parts of China and they started life in Hong Kong not long ago before I was born, just like most families here. Because of the strong Chinese roots of people, our household practice is greatly influenced by the Chinese tradition. This affects their way of education to the young generations - They think that children must follow adults’ will in order to practice loyalty in the family, which is an absolute rule even if they are not suitable to you. I noticed that this kind of “conservative familial values” is all around me and I couldn’t fit into this culture as many rules to me are nonsense and unnecessary. The moral standards here were solid and subjective, which sounds unreal and impractical. I couldn’t explain why I felt “wrong” to live in the way that people have been practicing in my culture, but I have a hint towards my change in mind. This change happened when I started to meet friends from different cultures. Their practice were totally different from the people I met over the years. It’s strange that I found myself being more comfortable with them even though we are from totally different backgrounds. I realize that my cultural background became my life limit that had been leading my way that I didn’t really enjoy. But I am also aware that this kind of control has shaped my character and values, and affected my way of seeing this world to a certain point. This discovery let to the work “The Song of a Young Nutter”, which is about how I found myself being an outsider in my home country and how ridiculous people here are to me when being shaped by this controlling culture. In order to express this complex feeling, I used some of my weird and ridiculous childhood memories to create scenes in my photography as ironic metaphors to my feelings. I created an easy and funny atmosphere to the whole series of work to laugh at myself for being so unfitted to this society.

About the artist

HUNG Ching-yan, Fion (b. 1993) is a Hong Kong photo artist, who was born in a traditional Fujian family. She had lived with her grandparents for many years when she was small and since then she realized that there’s a big generation gap between the family and her. 
Hung graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Hon) in Visual Arts degree from the Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University in 2016. Her work “To Be Used Someday” received a WMA Young Talents award in 2016. Hung is primarily creating works based on photography, images and text. She has been focusing on the exploration of family relationships and resolving conflicts with Chinese cultures in the past few years. 
As an emerging artist, Hung has been actively participating in the Hong Kong art scene. Her recent project “I Wanted To Be A Mother” was selected to be one of the shows in the “Photographer Incubator Project” of the Hong Kong International Photo Festival 2020. This is also Hung’s second solo exhibition and was just exhibited in PHVLO HATCH art space in SSP district, Hong Kong. 
Other works of hers were exhibited in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea, Germany and Italy. Apart from her art practice, Hung also works for the art education field. The parties she has cooperated with include the research center of the Academy of Visual Arts HKBU, Arts with the Disabled Association Hong Kong and Nord Anglia International School Hong Kong. 
Hung currently lives and works in Hong Kong, and she is moving to England in the coming year (2021) to obtain her Master in Photography degree in London College of Communication, University of Arts London.