On being derailed, on aesthetic responsiveness in Hong Kong

ABSTRACT This paper is about an ongoing funded street photography and practice-led creative writing research project set in Hong Kong that has since been derailed both by the 2019 anti-government protests and by the Covid-19 pandemic. Various places in Hong Kong that had been previously chosen as sites of exploration were at times overwritten by anti-government graffiti, with the mood on the ground also overdetermined by the pandemic. Hence, the social environment is marked with anxiety and caution. This becomes an opportunity for reworking and rethinking. By means of aesthetic responsiveness via street photography, coupled with an autoethnographic-based documentary writing, Hong Kong is allowed to speak its moment.