The Paradox of history: NT frontier closed area by @JohnChoy 歷史虛幻之新界邊境禁區 @蔡旭威 Sat 2015-09-05 to Sat 2015-09-19 Anita Chan Lai-ling Gallery free admission

1. A double-decker bus quietly idles inside the Frontier Closed Area, on Crown Land. Out on the street of England in 1981, decommissioned on this island in 1997, it seemingly has captured the gradual lowering of the Union Jack in our city until its last time. Coincidence? Or history? Also in the closed area, stands a discoloured motto board in the front of a classroom of an abandoned village school; on it writes, "Don’t live in the past, but live out your best today.” Perhaps history is only illusionary. Or, it is some kind of melancholy and loss as one "fails to cut away, fiddling into disarray”? But, if there’s no dialogue between today and yesterdays, will tomorrow ever dawn? This New Territories Frontier Closed Area with the burden of history on its back, that lets us glimpse into the paradox vaguely visible, will it be still there tomorrow? How about the New Territories, Hong Kong……? 同在禁區內，廢棄了的村校課室前，殘留一塊退了色的格言板，上面寫著︰「不要活在過去，努力活好今天」。 二零一五年，一輛雙層巴士沉靜地佇立在邊境禁區一處官地上。它在一九八一年出廠於英國，一九九七年退役於小島──彷彿凝住了米字旗在我城緩緩降下 的一瞬。 是巧合罷？是歷史嗎？

也許歷史就是虛幻？又或者，一切不過是某種「剪不斷，理還亂」的離愁？然而，假若今天沒有過去，明天又可會來？ 背負着歷史、隱隱透虛幻的邊境禁區，明天還在嗎？新界、香港，還在嗎……？ Currently a freelance photographer, John Choy was born in Hong Kong in 1966. He worked as a photographer for a series of local newspapers and magazines, as well as Information Services Department from 1989 to 2001

蔡旭威，1966年生於香港，現為自由攝影師。

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