American documentary photographer Todd Darling photographed Hongkongers' now historical struggle against the Chinese pressure to introduce an authoritarian centralized government.

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Portrait of Hong Kong is a collaborative portrait project that memorializes Hongkongers struggle for an identity while highlighting the social issues that face the city's inhabitants during the popular anti-government movement. Individually the portraits and text may tell a simple story about daily life or address larger issues such as universal suffrage or inequality. Still, as a whole, they tell a nuanced story about Hong Kong and her people.

The activists Todd Darling photographed represent a broad cross-section of society here. However, many are the younger generation of students in high school and college. Darling: "They come from diverse economic backgrounds as well. Supporters of human rights struggles can be bus drivers, bankers, butchers, students, grannies, air traffic controllers, and priests. Currently, a very significant portion of the population is supportive of the movement in one way or another although the establishment and its supporters deny that."

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Identity

Todd Darling explains his idea about his series Portrait of Hong Kong. "A fundamental issue many people wrestle with is defining who or what is a Hongkonger? While people may wrestle with that deeply rooted question, they are confronted with pressure to conform to cultural, social, or political ideologies. This is apparent in one particular portrait where a subject posed with a gun to their head, expressing his rage over the implementation of an extradition treaty with Mainland China. Some artist-participants express frustration over familial pressure to conform to parental expectations in their professional lives. Some participants worry Hong Kong's aesthetic is changing and housing is unaffordable. Others say they are troubled by Hong Kong's materialism. What's not expressed in the portraits but essential to mention is that self-censorship is already affecting some artists I have met whose livelihoods rely on the mainland Chinese market. There is a lot of frustration and anger that has festered over many decades from being subjugated to rule by governments that do not respect the local culture and attitudes of many in Hong Kong. Simply put, Hong Kong people have not had an equitable stake in their own affairs.  In 2019, the attempted implementation of an extradition law allowing Hong Kong people to be tried in mainland China caused unprecedented unrest. Many people here viewed the law as an existential crisis to them personally and to their home. Now with the new national security law, many feel a sense of defeat but also the determination to struggle on."
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Self-censorship is already affecting some artists

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Ideologies and myths

Darling explores ideologies and myths in the modern world and shapes that into his images. "I am interested in the ideologies and mythologies of my home, be it Hong Kong or America, which is where my work is focused. It is interesting to explore those ideologies and myths in two very significant places shaping the modern world to a great extent. My work is personal and focused on the immediate world around me. I don't venture to many far-off places to take pictures; the local world around me is always fascinating enough. I spend a lot of time focusing on politics, local and international, so I am sure my work reflects political thought and ideas. My work on Paterson, New Jersey was about exploring the myth of America, a place I love intensely. I am fascinated with the American myth that lives in my heart that fails to live up to the American reality I see with my eyes now. In Hong Kong, I am interested in exploring how Hong Kong identity has evolved through its history and the weight of repression that many people feel now. Those are some of the themes, questions, feelings that are motivating me now."

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Collaboration

Darlings work is not, as most photojournalists would work, a single person’s enterprise. Instead, he collaborates intensely with his subjects, making them not only an object but foremost a practical and substantial part of his work. The protagonists add their own words on the prints. "I suggest that people consider what they want to say about their lives and select a place significant to them as the setting for the portrait. I scout the location where I create an image that reflects the person's character and the idea they want to communicate. The text and the photograph work together to enhance the artwork. The final step includes making the print in my studio and meeting with the participants to add their text to the print. By photographing a cross-section of society and combining participants text about their lives or the city with their portraits, I hoped to make a small contribution to the struggle of defining what Hongkonger means. Hong Kong will be permanently altered. What will replace it? It is a question that's central in our lives now. When I'm photographing activists, I'm quite worried about what will happen to them. I hope these pictures serve as a record of who they are and the sacrifices they make defending the fundamental freedoms essential to our human nature."

Text and photographs

Darling is not the first photographer to add text onto his photographs. Well known are the photos of Jim Goldberg The Rich and the Poor. He had the subjects write their personal stories besides the images, revealing a baffling loneliness and depression among both parts of the scale. The texts on Darlings photographs are in Chinese characters making reading them for many westerners impossible. On request, Darling translated some quotes. Here is one.

July 05, 2018 - Hong Kong SAR, China:
Beijing has once promised Hong Kong “One Country, Two Systems”, but it has become “One Country, 1.5 Systems” now. Under Xi Jinping’s rule, our freedom has been eroding, but we will never give up because Hong Kong is our home. We deserve democracy and freedom. No one should be forced to flee their home." - Joshua Wong, Activist in Admiralty outside LegCo. (caption written July 04, 2019)

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Todd R. Darling is an American documentary photographer based in Hong Kong for sixteen years, where he began his career photographing the Umbrella Movement for Polaris Images in 2014. He studied Documentary Practice and Visual Journalism at the International Centre of Photography and the Eddie Adams workshop XXX in 2017. Todd recently completed work on a documentary project that began in 2016, about Paterson, NJ to become a book, published by Damiani and released in Spring 2021. The book, inspired by local poet William Carlos Williams, is a lyrical interrogation of the American dream told through the singular experience of America's first industrial city and its people. He's currently documenting his home city, Hong Kong and studying at the Savannah College of Arts and Design.

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