Adrift in Time (Hardcover)

An artist’s journey of loss and retrieval as documented through photographic and philosophical mediations on time, memory, and loneliness.

As a student in France in the 1980s and 1990s, Chun Wai wandered the streets and alleys of Paris, experiencing its cultural icons and backstreets and taking snapshots. Chun’s photographic negatives from this time were stored in sleeves unknowingly deteriorating in the Hong Kong humidity, and were rediscovered in their fractured and crumbling form thirty years later. Through examination and careful restoration work, Chun found the erosion of his own fleeting, suspended memories reflected in these photographs. Printed in black and white, the restored images exhibited under the title Adrift in Time verge between abstraction and dream-like reality. Presented with a foreword by Florian Knothe, this publication expands the impact of its titular exhibition, providing a photographic record of the past and the passing of time.