Nancy Sheung's powerful photos of Hong Kong women in the 60s
Photographer Nancy Sheung is one of the most important figures in Hong Kong photography. Evelyn Lok explores Sheung’s raw talent and lasting influence alongside an exhibition of her work.
Exhibiting at Lumenvisum this month is "Rare Encounters: Nancy Sheung’s Portraits of Women in the 1960s." It's a retrospective of Hong Kong photographer Nancy Sheung Wai-chun (1914-1979), the first major exhibition of her works in Hong Kong.
Curators Dr. Edwin K. Lai and Rachel Ip Hui-yin, who have both worked on Lumenvisum’s long-running archival exhibition series “Photographs of History, History of Photographs,” will be exhibiting 25 of Sheung’s images at the gallery through April 12.
It all started with an email from American curator Tiffany Beres Pong Wai-ying, Sheung’s granddaughter, who wrote to Lai about the family’s collection of over 200 vintage photographs. Lai jumped at the chance to showcase and study such a valuable contribution to Hong Kong photography.
“These are pieces which highlight Nancy Sheung as a woman photographer: in that generation, that was incredibly rare.” —Curator Edwin K. Lai
Tiffany Beres Pong Wai-ying, granddaughter of Nancy Sheung, visited on the exhibition’s opening night. “I grew up with many of her photographs in my house and in the houses of my uncles and aunts," she said. "But sadly she passed away before I was born: I never met her.”