Founded in 2018 by two local artists, 1844 Macau Photography Art Space (1844) is the only space purely dedicated to photographic art in Macau, with a goal to create a platform for local photographers to show off their talent, and to promote the art of photography.
“1844 was named after the year when the earliest photographs of China were taken in Macau, which was five years after the invention of photography,” notes Ben Ieong Man Pan, one of the founders. “Our purpose is to use 1844 as a means to expose the local community to photography from outside Macau. Due to the limited size and manpower, we mainly have solo exhibitions.”
Ben Ieong Man Pan
Ben is a local artist and photographer in Macau. After studying photography at Chongqing University, he held his first solo photography exhibition, Unfoldable Map at The Oriente Foundation in Macau, presenting works that reflected on his own memory and observations about the development of the city.
“Photography is the one medium for me to express my ideas, I usually combine different media. Recently, I have been exploring the relationship between people and the change of the society through my work,” Ben says.
“In the course of my journey into photography, I found that Macau did not have its own image database, so I first created an online database to collect photos of Macau. Later, we opened the Photography Art Space where we can hold photo exhibitions of local photographers of all age groups, especially those who have never had a solo exhibition before. We also invite photographers from Mainland China to exhibit their own photography in our art space, this way we can also promote photography from outside Macau.”
Art director of 1844 Macau Photography Art Space, Yoyo Wong Weng Io joined Ben in 2015 after completing her degree at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. Her recent exhibition Confusion of Confusions II: Chaos in 2019 was presented at 1844 Macau Photography Art Space, delving into the relationship between human consciousness and technology, the nature of self and virtual identities in a contemporary digital age.
Yoyo Wong Weng Io
“Personally, my artistic pursuits cover various media including photographs, drawing, sculpture, installation art. I like to apply media according to the concepts and the messages I want to convey,” says Yoyo. “But I think photography is still very important because it permeates every aspect of our life, we can easily take photos to document things. Photography is accumulative to me and some of the photos I take could possibly become my future works.”
Since it opened, 1844 Macau Photography Art Space has held a number of interesting exhibitions, but the most special and moving photography exhibition to them was Vietnamese Boat People in Macao by local photographer and former journalist Chan Weng Hon.
“The series documented the whole process of the incident, from the Vietnamese refugees disembarking, their living conditions in Macau, and intervention of the Macau Government and the United Nation between the 1970s and 80s,” explains Ben. “We were glad that the exhibition was recognized by so many local people. It was also our huge pleasure to invite Mr. Chan to have his first solo exhibition with us.”
“This exhibition was the most comprehensive record of the situation of Vietnamese refugees in Macau,” adds Yoyo. “Organizations from Hong Kong and Taiwan contacted us and thought this exhibition was really meaningful. In the preparation of the exhibition, I realized there was no comprehensive information about Vietnamese refugees in Macau, so I needed to collect information from a variety of sources for the materials for the exhibition,” she adds.
As home-grown artists, Ben and Yoyo express optimism about the development of local photographers, but are also concerned about the disappearing local landscape in the city.
“Local photographers here have their own characteristics; they are a reflection of Macau. Besides, in this age of information explosion, we are witnessing such a diversity in photography, Macau is undoubtedly also led by this trend. We’ve noticed a lot of emerging photographers these days,” Ben expresses.
“I was born and raised here,” he adds, “and I realise that Macau has changed so rapidly since I graduated from university. New landscapes have been quickly replacing the old ones, like local houses disappearing as they are replaced by busy roads. It’s like every memory from the past is disappearing.”
“Recently I’ve been reading a lot of history about Macau,” adds Yoyo. “It also strikes me how much our generation has changed, which is faithfully reflected on the streets. It is highly possible many old stores will be gone soon, so I take photos of those buildings whenever I pass by. As part of this generation, I think we should do our best to document whatever we can,” she concludes.
