Xyza Cruz Bacani: Under Represented

Private View: 8 December 2016, 6-8 pm 

​Apiary Studios, 458 Hackney Road, London, E2 9EG

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Christine Park Gallery is delighted to present a solo exhibition by Filipina street photographer and documentary photographer, Xyza Cruz Bacani. Under Represented, Bacani’s first solo exhibition in London, will include works from the Occupy HK – Teargas and Occupy HK – Suffrage series’, as well as the Isolation series. Collectively the works summarise her practice as a street and documentary photographer, as well as her inner universe as an artist.
 
Working as a domestic worker in Hong Kong for almost a decade, Bacani uses photography to raise awareness about under-reported stories, focusing on migrants and human rights issues. Whilst dealing with heavily weighted socio-political issues, Bacani’s works also reflect the isolation she felt whilst living in a foreign country, and also working as a domestic worker in this foreign setting.  Echoing her 2015 exhibition After Work at Para-site Hong Kong - a group show that presented the historical stories of migrant domestic works in Hong Kong and the South East Asia vicinity, as well as a modern interpretation of migrant labour- Bacani’s act of taking photography is both a representation of the migrant worker and a representation of herself as an artist in a polarized modern society divided by class. Her work also engages with issues faced by young artists existing within highly competitive art market.
 
The exhibition is entitled Under Represented to illustrate Bacani’s thoughts about living in Hong Kong. Despite the extended period Bacani spent living and working in Hong Kong, she has always felt like an outsider. “I have a voice that was never heard, but with photography I am able to magnify what I want to say. Occupy HK changed the political landscape of Hong Kong. I was there and took photographs, but I still was not part of it.”