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Overview
This is an extraordinary and original way of telling the story of those years, and of examining the forces and phenomena behind that story. It can be enjoyed for its photography, considered as an excitingly different way of recording history, and read as a profound reflection on a city foreseeing and then experiencing an historical transformation.
Hong Kong University Press
Synopsis
At midnight on 30 June 1997 Hong Kong ceased to be a British colony and became a Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China. Instead of gaining independence, this most capitalist of cities was absorbed within the world's largest communist state. Reclaimed Land offers an analysis in words and images of Hong Kong's colonial transition, focusing not on the much-documented ceremonies which surrounded the handover of sovereignty itself but on the longer term process of transformation of which the events of mid-1997 were but one part.
Using images selected from an archive of photographs taken by David Clarke on a daily basis between the end of 1994 and the beginning of 2001, this innovatively conceived book offers a personal and critical perspective on the life of one of the world's most vibrant cities during a time of great change and self-questioining.
David Clarke is associate professor of fine art at the University of Hong Kong.