Grace Lau Portraits on Show
Grace Lau’s Portraits in a Chinese Studio exhibition (see the last Hastings Independent, issue 291) will be open to the public at Hastings Museum and Art Gallery from 13 January to 29 March 2026. A book of the portraits will also be on sale.
The archive represents an important demographic profile of the diversity of British society in the South of England. It implies that through such diversity, there is still a sense of harmony and empathy in our human race during our present unstable century.
Lau explains: “Through this project I am making an oblique comment on Imperialist visions of the ‘exotic’ Chinese and by reversing roles, I have become the Imperialist photographer documenting my exotic subjects in the ‘port’ of Hastings. The question of cultural representations in the archive is highlighted through my constructed tableaux and conflation of history. I have additionally created a unique archive of 400 subjects in a British seaside town during the summer of 2005.”
Further details: gracelau.co.uk/project/portraits-in-a-chinese-studio/ Hastings Museum: hmag.org.uk see-and-do/exhibitions/portraits-in-a-chinese-studio
We hope you have enjoyed reading this article. The future of our volunteer led, non-profit publication would be far more secure with the aid of a small donation. You can also support local journalism by becoming a friend of HIP. It only takes a minute and we would be very grateful.
Leave a Reply