Image Against Oppression was developed in response to the circulation and delayed censorship of images surrounding the 1 July 2019 clashes in Hong Kong. On the Chinese internet, many posts connected to the event were altered to avoid immediate removal. Details were hidden, captions were deliberately mismatched, and images were modified or uploaded in apparently incorrect forms. These tactics delayed recognition and gave the images more time to circulate.
The performance combines these images with footage from violent competitive video games. Documentary material and simulated violence are blurred, compressed, displaced, interrupted, and layered together. The result stays close to recognition without becoming fully identifiable. Viewers may sense what they are looking at, while certainty remains out of reach.
The work takes these improvised methods of circulation as its visual language. Reduced clarity keeps the image present while complicating search, moderation, and reuse. It also changes how the event is remembered. What remains is partial, unstable, and still charged by the original moment.
