This is work I made when our child was still an infant; in the early months of sleepless nights.  I never had a queer blueprint growing up; let alone one for being a queer parent; hoping to reimagine what is possible as a queer parent. 

I work in video, landscape, still life, and portraiture, and approach photography as one of building rather than taking.  The portraits I’ve made center those who are invisibilized, taking care of a city, each other; queering space, time, and gesture.  In the contested and contingent spaces in the public realm and the home, holding space and a conversation is an act of resistance.  Possibilities start with small gestures, clear or coded, in the potentiality of the in-between and everyday. The conceptual framework of my work is care and community, and queer kinship.

I cannot unsee what I saw while protesting in Hong Kong in 2019.  That summer, I had put the camera down more often than I raised it, and I cried myself to sleep every night.  Months later, I cradled our newborn infant each night while glued to the news 8,000 miles away, trapped in two time zones.  I made a series of videos while rocking our infant through endless, sleepless nights, crosscut with a humidifier reminiscent of plumes of tear gas and a blinking power strip echoing the red lights of police vans.  Shuttered indoors, my work and world compressed.  My practice evolved out of mourning for Hong Kong, the pandemic, and holding, comforting and caring for our baby between these ruptures.  They are forever linked, a world torn apart while a new being was coming into it.  Out of this we are broken, but it is also an awakening.

In between all of this, I’ve been thinking about love and caretaking and protection in a different way. In these three years, there has been darkness, chaos, loss and mourning, and then tiny slivers bit of hope and wonder that a child stubbornly insists upon you.

這個作品創作之時，我們的孩子還是嬰兒，而難以入眠的數個月才剛開始。我長大時從未有酷兒的藍本，更別說要成為酷兒家長，我希望重新想像作為酷兒家長的種種可能性。 

我的作品有錄像、地照、靜物及人像，而我處理攝影的方式傾向建構，而不是擷取。我的人像焦點放在被隱去的人、照顧城市及互相照顧的人，以及酷兒化空間、時間及姿態。在充滿爭議與不定的公共空間與家庭中，保持空間與對話是一種抵抗。可能性始於微小姿態，無論是明言或暗語，潛在於罅縫或日常中。我作品的概念框架在於關懷、社群及酷兒親屬關係。我無法忘記2019年在港示威時所見的事。那個夏天，我放下相機的次數比高舉相機的次數更多，每夜都是哭著入眠。數個月後，我困在兩個時區之中，每夜抱著我們剛出生的孩子的同時，對八千里外的新聞目不轉睛。我哄我們的孩子入睡的時候，我創作了一系列錄像，在那些難以入眠、沒有盡頭的夜裡，交叉剪接令人想起催淚彈的加濕器，以及呼應警車紅燈的拖線板燈光。關在室內，我的創作和世界都壓縮了。我的創作來自對香港的哀悼、疫情，以及在裂痕之中對我們的孩子的緊抱、安撫和照顧。它們永遠相連，當一個新生命來到之時，一個世界撕裂。我們因而破碎，卻同時覺醒。 

在這一切之間，我一直在以不同的方式思考愛、照顧和保護。 這三年，有黑暗，有混亂，有失落，有悲痛，還有孩子執意給你的一線希望與奇蹟。

Ka-Man Tse has exhibited work at Para Site, Videotage, Lumenvisum, and Eaton Workshop, in Hong Kong.  She has mounted solo shows at Aperture in New York, the Silver Eye Center for Photography in Pittsburgh, PA, and at the New York Public Library. Recent exhibitions and screenings include Art on the Stoop: Sunset Screenings at the Brooklyn Museum, Chosen at Leslie Lohman Museum in New York, Tate Lates at the Tate Museum, and Known and Strange at the Photography Centre, Victoria and Albert Museum in London. She is the recipient of the Aaron Siskind Fellowship, the Robert Giard Fellowship, and the Aperture Portfolio Prize. Curatorial projects include Daybreak: New Affirmations in Queer Photography at Leslie Lohman Museum, and Unruly Visions, in partnership with the Hong Kong International Photography Festival.  Her monograph, narrow distances, was published by Candor Arts. Her writing has been published in Best! Letters from Asian Americans edited by Christopher K. Ho and Daisy Nam, Photo No-Nos, edited by Jason Fulford, and Object Lessons, edited by Leslie Martin. My Race is My Gender, in collaboration with Stephanie Hsu is forthcoming through Rutgers University Press. She has taught at Yale, Cooper Union, and is currently Director of BFA Photography at Parsons.

謝嘉敏曾於香港Para Site、錄映太奇、光影作坊及Eaton Workshop展出作品，她亦於美國紐約Aperture、賓夕凡尼亞匹茲堡Silver Eye Center for Photography及美國公共圖書館作個人展覽。近期展覽及放映包括布魯克林博物館Sunset Screenings、萊斯利洛曼博物館Chosen、泰特現代藝術館Tate Late以及倫敦維多利亞與阿爾伯特博物館攝影中心Known and Strange。她曾獲Aaron Siskind Fellowship、Robert Giard Fellowship及Aperture Portfolio Prize。她曾策劃的計劃，包括萊斯利洛曼博物館「Daybreak: New Affirmations in Queer Photography」及與香港國際攝影節合作之「嘯傲之相：酷兒之影像習作」。她的著作《Narrow Distance》由Candor Arts出版。她的文章曾收錄於《Best! Letters from Asian Americans》（Christopher K. Ho及Daisy Nam編輯）、《Photo No-Nos》（Jason Fulford編輯）及《Object Lessons》（Leslie Martin編輯），而與Stephanie Hsu合作之《My Race is My Gender》即將由羅格斯大學出版社出版。她曾於耶魯大學及柯柏聯盟學院任教，現時為帕森設計學院攝影學士課程總監。