One of the Centre’s missions is to nurture a new generation of Hong Kong historians.
An Early Career Scholar Network was created under the Hong Kong History Centre in June 2023. It is intended to help create a community of Hong Kong historians and offer a platform for face-to-face interaction and academic exchange among young scholars. Research students and fresh doctoral graduates working on socioeconomic, political and cultural history of Hong Kong and its global relevance are welcomed. We usually meet thrice a year (February, June and October) with participants taking turns to present their works in each meeting. Financial support is provided for our network members attending these sessions.
Please write to Prof. Ray Yep, Research Director of Hong Kong History Centre, at rekmy@bristol.ac.uk, if you are interested in joining this Network.
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In this post, we would like to introduce Hoyee Tse, a member of the Network.
Hoyee Tse is a PhD student at London Metropolitan University. In the note written by her below, she shares with us her reflections on her academic journey and current doctoral project on the visual imagery produced during the Hong Kong social movement between 2019 and 2020.
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My academic journey began with my interest in art creation. I was not only curious about the techniques and materials of artmaking but also the inspirations for artistic ideas. So, for undergraduate study, I decided to pursue a degree in art history and Italian language and culture. The duality of my study gave me insights on how art is interlaced with the concepts and values of our culture and society. I gradually discovered and developed the art historical research skill that is the most fascinating to me: the ability to read the works. Learning about the milieu of different artists gave me a sense of time travel AND became even more intrigued by the cultures that my favourite artists came from. After completing my thesis on Johannes Vermeer’s The Art Painting, I thus continued my research journey in Amsterdam. The iconography and iconology of the seventeenth century Dutch paintings surprisingly deepened and expanded my understanding about the power of imagery and images beyond Dutch culture. The vernacularity and prevalence of images for identity representations and as visualisations of socio-cultural values resemble (or persist) in our contemporary world. During my postgraduate study at the Institute of Education at the UCL, I explored further on the role of visual culture in shaping history with a vertical approach. My research discussed how the visual representations of the past defined our knowledge about that past and how ours would define the knowledge of those in the future about our present. One of my case studies was the contemporary visual culture collection in the M Plus Museum in Hong Kong. What will people in the future know about the Hong Kong people today?
It is a gap in this museum collection that inspires me to develop my doctoral project at London Metropolitan University. It is a study about the visual imagery produced during the Hong Kong social movement between 2019 and 2020. The sheer number of these visual images can be invaluable materials for us to understand the values and identities of Hong Kong people. Applying what I learnt from my art historical research, I am utilising iconography and iconology theories to evaluate how and to what extent the movement’s visual production defines these values and identities. I am taking a horizontal approach in analysing these images from a more global perspective. The hybridity of Hong Kong culture is embedded in these visual representations. Hence, I am focusing on visual interpretation and meaning-making of glocal visual imagery, particularly iconic visual images adopted locally for the movement (such as that image adapted from Eugène Delacroix’s La Liberté guidant le peuple). By comparing and contrasting the incarnation of local visual imageries on social media with the original visual images from social movements in other nations, I am trying to unveil the ideological interrelations and interactions of Hong Kong with the other nations. Through my project, I will develop a (de)coding system to analyse the symbolic representation and contextual significance of these images.