The First Photograph depicts the story of the artist’s father who fled to Hong Kong in the 70s. The video are presented in a series of overlays and montages, initially taken from one of his father’s documentary photographs, and then combined with Google Maps to retrace the route of his escape from China, as well as newspaper news and radio broadcasts from 1978 to 1980.The artist also used the old negatives found at home,including those are overexposed, torn, faded, with light leaks, etc., It is an attempt to find and restore the unrecorded family story in his father’s fading memories, and to reflect on the larger historical narrative through the individual’s life experience.

《第一張照片》描繪了藝術家的父親在七十年代時逃難到香港的故事。錄像以大量疊化和蒙太奇的方式呈現，最初取材自父親的一張證件照，再結合通過谷歌地圖重回當年逃港的路線、1978至1980年報章新聞及廣播資料、家中的舊底片，包括過曝、破損、褪色、漏光的壞底片等。試圖在父親淡去的記憶中，尋覓並還原這段沒有影像記錄的家族故事，透過個體的生命經驗，反觀大型歷史敘事下的距離和時間感。

Born in Hong Kong in 1991, Jess gained her BA (Honours) in Creative Media at the City University of Hong Kong in 2014. Jess’ work applies themes such as narrative fragments, body memory and focus on iterative manual processes and the aggregation of time. Jess’ work involves a wide range of media – videos, animation, installation – it explores the uniqueness and the malleability of each different medium, for example, outlining the fiction and reality with stop-motion animation. Her iconic works are created through the accumulation of labour and time. The material is constantly reorganised, shaped and dismantled in the world of video, connecting and extending with the memory and imagination of the city as well as the individual self. At the same time, her works aim to break the cold impression of media art, to portray the temperature of people, the traces left by her body, and to emphasise the process of creation and imaging. 

Jess’ artworks have been exhibited and screened internationally in: Ars Electronica, Austria, Animatou – International Animation Film Festival, Switzerland, Image Forum Festival 2022, Japan, Two Temple Place, London, IFVA Media Art Festival, Hong Kong, Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong, West Kowloon FreeSpace, Hong Kong and etc. Jess was the selected artist of Tai Kwun Contemporary Artists’ Studio Residency 2020 and awarded the Nanying Prize from Taiwan 2022.