About 80 snapshots of life in Macao captured through the lens of artist Ms. Alice Kok and her IFT students are on display at the IFT Team Building. The exhibition, “Documenting Impermanence: An Exhibition of Reportage Photography by Alice Kok and Students”, runs until 31 March.
The IFT Tourism and Hotel School launched a reportage photography course in 2011, inviting well-known artist Ms. Kok as instructor. The programme is part of the Institute’s efforts to promote the development of Macao’s cultural and creative industries.
The Tourism and Hotel School runs study courses of varying duration and level of specialisation for creative disciplines. The fields covered range from fine art painting to computer animation and the production of leather accessories. Some courses lead to certificates or diplomas.
Ms. Kok has taught photography at IFT for 7 years to students from many different backgrounds, from reporters to a fireman and a fish salesman. In her classes, students are asked to use their cameras to look at Macao’s daily life from a different viewpoint than usual.
“Images have their own language,” she says, pointing at a series of photos on the city’s kennel featured in the exhibition. “If you look at these dogs’ eyes, you can readily feel emotions. Images can tell an emotion, a story.”
The artist praises the quality of photos produced by her students at IFT for their final projects; some of those pictures were selected for the exhibition.
“In recent years, I see a change. Students are no longer beginners,” she says.
One of her students, Mr. Anthony Leong, already has joined exhibitions in Japan and France. One other is now teaching photography.
Mr. Abel Chiang is one of Ms. Kok’s students with works featured at the IFT exhibition. He says it was the possibility of turning into images the dramatic reality and human suffering he deals with every day in his work as a fireman that attracted him to the IFT course on reportage photography.
The exhibition includes 3 images Mr. Chiang took in 2015 as part of a series on living in an overcrowded city whose population has increased rapidly and that handles millions of tourists annually.
“I grew up in Macao, it was very quiet and silent back then,” he says. “There was a big change after the handover and after Mainland visitors were allowed in [via the individual visa scheme].”
Mr. Chiang has joined the IFT course on reportage photography for 3 years in a row and has no plans to put down his camera. He is now planning a series of works that compare today’s Macao with the city in the past.
