Hass Zhang's Luminous Journey Through Global Chinatown

The photography exhibition "Otherland" by Hass Zhang (Wei Qi) explores cultural displacement and belonging. Inspired by "the Other" and heterotopia, "Otherland" explores diverse, fluid and alive spaces and communities on the periphery of reality.

Using the global "Pan-Chinatown" as his canvas and the camera as his brush, Zhang creates a poetic visual narrative across three dimensions: Aura, Spiritual Light, and Illumination. His works resonate with Walter Benjamin's notion of Aura, capturing transient scenes of daily life – Chinese restaurant kitchens, faded shop signs, family gatherings and ritual ceremonies – transforming them into reflections on time, identity and transcendence.

His camera functions not merely as a recording device; it mirrors the mind. His lens unveils both the tangible and the ethereal, blurring the lines between the real and the imagined, the past and the present. As the Ming philosopher Wang Yangming (1472-1529) articulated the "one spark of illumination" (灵明), Zhang channels this inner radiance into his art, transforming impermanence into quiet revelation.

Ultimately, "Otherland" invites viewers to reflect on the meanings of home and identity in an era of globalization and cultural change. Amid the interplay of globalization and localization, Chinatown emerges as a living theater of cultural fluidity.

Yet, perhaps Chinatown is not the only Otherland. In this fleeting yet eternal, familiar yet estranged modernity, each of us is navigating our own spiritual map – searching for and constructing that luminous Otherland where authenticity (Eigentlichkeit) may finally flourish.

Date: November 17 to February 14

Venue: Moment Gallery

永瞬画廊

Address: 550 Wuding Rd

武定路550号