Have been invited to exhibit at Asia’s pre-eminent design and arts expo – the Gwangju Design Biennale in South Korea – with the images I collected from my visits to Hong Kong’s ‘Cage Home’ people. The Biennale team are replicating a Hong Kong cage home flat (which normally house up to 20 individual cage homes) and an actual 6 foot by two and a half foot wire cage ‘home’.
My surrounding exhibited photographs will tell the visual story of some of the tens of thousands of unfortunates who are living their lives in these cramped cages in Hong Kong – acknowledged as one of the World’s richest cities.
I’ve also been invited to give a video presentation … so will be off to Gwangju in southern Korea for the opening event on September 2nd.
Gwangju is Korea’s sixth largest city and the focus for contemporary design and arts on the peninsula and, indeed, Asia. The last Gwangju Design Biennale in 2009 attracted fractionally under half a million visitors.
However, Gwangju city is most noted for the 1980 massacre of (an unofficial figure) of near two thousand pro-democracy student demonstrators by the armed forces, when the city was at the forefront of the democracy movement in South Korea. The people of Gwangju are proud of the uprising and tend to be at the forefront of any political upheaval in the country.
Below I’ve posted just two of the ‘Cage Dogs’ images that will be part of the exhibit at the Biennale. They will link to more cage home images on my web site proper.
Images © Brian Cassey
