Featured Photographer: Zhou HanShun's "Frenetic City"
Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated cities in the world. With close to 7.4 million residents living in just 426 square miles, it is a city of intense and chaotic movement, that at first glance, is overwhelming to those not used to its environment. Photographer Zhou HanShun knows this all too well. When he first moved to the city from Singapore, he was immediately confronted by a society that made him fiercely compete for his own physical and mental space. He explained his first reaction: “When I first arrived and walked down the streets, I was overwhelmed by the pace of the pedestrians. If I happen to slow down or stop in the middle of the street, I would get a stare or occasionally a quick earful. Generally, I feel that the city itself has this energy to it - a never-ending energy, day-to-night”. For the first time, he was living in a world close to millions of people with no personal connections or community to stabilize him. This atmosphere devastated him, leaving him at a loss of how to shake his feelings of loneliness and loss of personal identity.
In an effort of catharsis, to capture and recreate the tension and pandemonium felt on the streets of Hong Kong in photographic form, Zhou HanShun embarked to create his series Frenetic City though a viewfinder of an old Hasselblad. Though each of his images captures a single location, they don’t represent a single moment in time, but a multitude of moments captured in a single frame. This is apparent when you realize he had to be on location for as long as 7 hours to capture just 12 photographs. Each of the images ranges from 10 to 50 exposures which required him to patiently wait for the perfect combination of weather, light, and movement of the people he was photographing. He shared that, “To say life moves fast in a city is an understatement. People go through life in an uncompromising, chaotic pace, overcoming and absorbing anything in their path. Time in the city seem to flow quicker, memories in the city tend to fade away faster. Nothing seems to stand still in a city.” With that being said, he told us, “When I am shooting, I hardly notice the time, until the sun is about the set or the light is fading”.
Ultimately, Zhou HanShun’s series is a social commentary on the ghosts that pass through us during our daily lives. We constantly see members of our communities on a mission to survive, running from place to place without offering the simplest form of interaction due to their commitment to their jobs, families, and social expectations of achievement. Frenetic City can teach us that although these people have been ghosts in the past, the current climate of the world is allowing us a chance at social reset. Social distancing is actually acting as a form of social strengthening. The intense hustle and bustle of the world is coming to a screeching halt which is allowing us to find solace in the spirit of each-other’s strength, charity, and generosity - both in the physical world and in online communities. So after you spend some time with Frenetic City, reach out to your communities, families, friends, and colleagues. Don’t be a ghost to them, be present and offer something more than a passing hello. Offer them your spirit.
GALLERY
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Born and raised in Singapore, Zhou HanShun is a Photographic Artist and Art Director. After graduating from Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts Singapore and RMIT University, he went on to make a living as an art director, and continues to pursue his passion as a visual storyteller and photographer. He uses photography as a way to explore, investigate and document the culture and people in the cities he has lived in. Apart from discovering the aspects of everyday life, his work also seeks to explore the notion of spirituality and humanity in the urban environment. HanShun often photographs with intuition and creates work with a sense of spontaneity.
HanShun has exhibited at the Lishui Photography Festival (2019), Mt. Rokko International Photography Festival (2019), KG+ Kyotographie Satellite Event (2018), Tumbas Cultural Center in Thessaloniki, Greece for Photoeidolo (2017), the Molekyl Gallery in Sweden, for the Malmo Fotobiennal (2017), the Gallery under Theater in Bratislava, Slovakia for The Month of Photography Bratislava(2017), the Czech China Contemporary Museum in Beijing for the SongZhuang International Photo Biennale(2017), the PhotoMetria "Parallel Voices" exhibition in Greece (2016), the Addis FotoFest in Ethiopia (2016), among others.
HanShun was awarded 3rd Prize at the Mt. Rokko International Photography Festival (2019), a Special Mention at the Balkan Photo Festival (2016), Shortlisted for the Hariban Award (2019, 2018 and 2017), and was a finalist of Photolucida Critical Mass (2016), among others.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael Behlen is a photography enthusiast from Fresno, CA. He works in finance and spends his free time shooting instant film and backpacking in the California wilderness, usually a combination of the two. He has been published, been interviewed, and been reviewed in a quantity of magazines and online publications, from F-Stop and Blur magazine to the Analog Talk Podcast. He loves the magic sensuality of instant film: its saturated, surreal colors; the unpredictability of the medium; it’s addictive qualities as you watch it develop. He is the founder of Analog Forever Magazine. Connect with Michael Behlen on his Website and on Instagram!
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