The Seen・The Made: TAN Khiang × Almond CHU — Art Direction Meets Photography

The Seen・The Made

TAN Khiang × Almond CHU — Art Direction Meets Photography

The Seen and The Made marks two intertwined forces within the practice of image-making. To see is never a neutral act. It is shaped by cultural norms, social structures, and personal perception. To make an image, likewise, is not simply to arrange form, but to project imagination, to inscribe desire, and to construct memory. This exhibition, The Seen・The Made, brings together creative director Tan Khiang and photographic artist Almond Chu in a dialogue on how the "urban figure" is observed, shaped, and ultimately woven into the fabric of collective memory.

The exhibition unfolds in two bodies of work, each carrying cultural memory from 1990s Hong Kong to the present. The first takes us back to 1993–1995, when Tan Khiang served as art director for the albums of Cantopop diva Anita Mui. Working with a number of photographers, he orchestrated a visual language that helped shape her star persona. As cultural theorist Richard Dyer has argued, a star image does not exist naturally. It is a cultural construct forged through photography, design, and the imagination of its audience. Anita Mui's image embodies this process, exemplifying the power of "making" within popular culture.

In contrast, Almond Chu's Urbanites series turns its gaze toward the city's intellectual and artistic figures. The strength of these portraits lies not in spectacle but in restraint. Echoing Roland Barthes' idea of the punctum, the detail that pierces the viewer and anchors memory beyond compositional logic, Chu distils each image to its essentials, isolating expression, gesture, and presence against minimal backdrops. The result is a fleeting yet intense encounter, an intimate point of contact between subject and viewer. Taken together, the series transcends individual likeness to form a living archive, one that preserves and reflects the cultural consciousness of Hong Kong across generations.

Placed in dialogue, the two practices reveal the tension between making and seeing. Tan's art direction frames the persona through design and visual construction, emphasizing the image as "manufactured." Chu's photography, by contrast, insists on individuality and presence, emphasizing existence within the city. Their interplay sustains a tension between the real and the constructed, between documentation and imagination.

To view an image is never a passive act but an active engagement. Each gaze breathes new life into the image, transforming it into more than a representation of an individual. It becomes a re-creation of cultural identity and urban spirit. To look at Anita Mui's images is to see not only the singer herself but also the cultural sensibility of 1990s Hong Kong. To engage with Chu's Urbanites is to encounter more than individual artists or intellectuals; it is to see the embodiment of a city's ethos. Borrowing from Ariella Azoulay, photography can be understood as a "civil contract": in the act of viewing, we also participate in the re-making of the image.

The Seen・The Made is therefore more than a dual exhibition. It is a site of reflection on how images mediate our understanding of people and of the city itself. At a time when visual symbols multiply endlessly around us, this exhibition calls for pause: to discern, to reconstruct, and to hold in the fragile yet enduring memory of one city named Hong Kong.

Text / Ann MAK
ARTIST: Almond Chu

Almond Chu is a Hong Kong-based photographic artist. He graduated from the Department of Fine Art Photography at the Tokyo College of Photography in Japan. In 1993, he established Almond Chu Studio, launching his career in both personal art creation and commercial photography.

That same year, he received the Young Photographer Award from the Asian Cultural Council. His work has since gained international recognition. In 2004, he was invited as a speaker at the International Symposium on Literature and Aesthetics, co-organized by the University of Bonn and the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany. In 2007, he received both the Gold Award and Grand Prize at the Asia Photo Awards. He was nominated for the Prix Pictet in France in 2015, received the Outstanding Photographer Award at the Pingyao International Photography Festival in 2017, and was shortlisted for the Shpilman International Prize for Excellence in Photography in 2018. His works have been exhibited across China, Europe, North America, and Asia, and featured in numerous international photography publications.

Beyond his artistic practice, Chu has played an important role in shaping Hong Kong’s photographic culture. In 2005, he founded the pH5 photography collective to promote art photography locally, and he was also a founding member of the Hong Kong International Photo Festival. Between 1995 and 2023, he taught at institutions including the Tokyo College of Photography, City University of Hong Kong, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, HKU SPACE, and the Hong Kong Art School, mentoring a new generation of image-makers.

Chu’s works are held in public and private collections worldwide, including national museums such as the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow, contemporary art institutions such as M+ in Hong Kong and the Guangdong Museum of Art, as well as by collectors in Europe, the US, and Hong Kong. Selected works are represented by galleries in Belgium, Russia, and Hong Kong, and he remains an active presence in Hong Kong’s contemporary art scene.
ARTIST: Tan Khiang

Tan Khiang (TK) has worked in the advertising industry for over 40 years. In 2003, he founded Wowwowtank, a multidisciplinary creative company specializing in advertising, branding, television commercial production, and graphic design. Based in Hong Kong, the company is also active in mainland China and other parts of Asia. As a film director, TK has directed hundreds of commercials, sales videos, and viral campaigns across industries such as fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) and real estate.

His work has earned numerous international awards, including the HK4As Kam Fan Awards (Hong Kong, China), GONG Awards (Singapore), New York Festivals, Clio Awards, AWARD Australia, Communication Arts (CA), The One Show, Asian Advertising Awards, London International Awards, and the Times Awards (Taiwan, China), with particular recognition for excellence in print advertising. Since 2001, TK has served as a jury member at many major award shows, including over ten rounds of the Longxi Awards, as well as China 4As, One Show Greater China, LIA China, HK4As, Adfest, and the Hong Kong Institute of Professional Photographers Annual Awards (HKIPP) in 1994. Since 1984, he has closely collaborated with photographers and has remained deeply engaged in image-based creative production.

Recently, he exhibited generative art at Art One. He also taught art direction for six years in the Master of Advertising program at The Chinese University of Hong Kong and has been teaching in the Masterclass in Art Direction at the School of Design, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, since 2008.

A passionate collector of photography, paintings, art books, and Chinese tea, TK is also an avid street photographer with a sharp eye for visual styles and evolving aesthetic trends. In recent years, he has actively explored the creative applications of text-to-image AI technologies, with a continued focus on innovation in visual art.
CURATOR: Ann Mak

Dr. Ann Mak, born in Hong Kong, is a curator and scholar specializing in curatorial practice and art criticism, with a focus on media art and interdisciplinary artistic research. Her work emphasizes connecting cultures through art, fostering international exchange, and exploring new dimensions of creative practice that reflect the diversity and openness of today’s cultural landscape.

Her curatorial projects include Morphogenesis of Values (2022–2023), which showcased media artist Maurice Benayoun’s work combining neuro-design and blockchain; Ars Electronica – Hong Kong Garden (2020–2021); and On the Road: Young Chinese Media Artists (2017–2019), a collaboration with the Guan Shanyue Art Museum. From 2014 to 2016, she curated Open Sky Campus, a media art education initiative that featured student video works on the façade of Hong Kong’s International Commerce Centre (ICC). The project was selected for presentation at ISEA 2016. She also contributed to the curation and production of A Glimpse of Hong Kong: Interactive Media Art Exhibition (2014).

Mak has a long-standing engagement with photography. Between 2013 and 2017, she was invited four times to curate exhibitions at the Pingyao International Photography Festival. From 2015 to 2016, she served as photography advisor to the Hong Kong Alliance Française, curating the touring exhibition Love HK across Hong Kong, Mainland China, and France, which featured contemporary art photography from both regions. In 2012, she was involved in the planning and execution of the international exhibition On Hong Kong – Different Dimension at the Novosibirsk State Art Museum in Russia. From 2003 to 2019, Mak also served as the visual director for Hong Kong International Poetry Nights.
Almond CHU, Jackie CHAN Movie Star Hong Kong, 2006. Giclée print, 90 × 90 cm. Courtesy of the artist.
Almond CHU, ZHANG Xiaogang Painter Beijing, 2012. Giclée print, 90 × 90 cm. Courtesy of the artist.
Almond CHU, Coco CHANG Model Hong Kong, 2005. Giclée print, 90 × 70 cm. Courtesy of the artist.
Almond CHU, Josie HO Actress Hong Kong, 2010. Giclée print, 90 × 63.3 cm. Courtesy of the artist.
Almond CHU, SU Shu Dancer / Choreographer Hong Kong, 2013. Giclée print, 90 × 70 cm. Courtesy of the artist.
TAN Khiang, Anita MUI - Dramatic Life, CD album, photographed by CHIANG Ka Wah, 1993. Giclée print, 75.24 × 73.17 cm. Courtesy of artist TAN Khiang.
TAN Khiang, Anita MUI - It's Like This, CD album, photographed by Franco LAI, 1994. Giclée print, 65.24 × 101.07 cm. Courtesy of artist TAN Khiang.
TAN Khiang, Anita MUI - The Woman of Songs, CD album, photographed by Rensis Ho, 1995. Giclée print, 65.24 × 95.7 cm. Courtesy of artist TAN Khiang.
TAN Khiang, Anita MUI - The Woman of Songs, CD album, photographed by Rensis HO, 1995. Giclée print, 45.24 × 34.3 cm. Courtesy of artist TAN Khiang.