"My King's Road" is a work about King’s Road from the view of the artist, Melvin Au (me). It is not only a personal visual diary about the artist feelings on King’s Road but also a visual record of the whole King’s Road with photos. Besides, there are some content about King’s Road history and the related story.

The final outcome is a “book”. The whole image of the King's Road is printed on a special designed book which created a brand new perspective towards the audience. Also, the book format which created the feeling of “owning a street” and “play it on the hands”. (In Chinese, it is 『一書在手， 把英皇道據為己有』and 『把玩在手中』.)

The traditional Chinese paintings inspirited me so much for doing this project. Those of them are great in details for showing a large view without any perspective concern in the western art theory. Like the paintings “Along the River During the Qingming Festival”(i.e. “清明上河圖” in Chinese), it is famous of its details description on a town in a side-view perspective. I love it so much and I always think about how would be it if a modern Hong Kong is recorded like that.

In few years ago, a local people have done a book with combined photos (a photo collage) for showing the whole street view of the longest street in Kowloon. It is a book called “Nathan Road” by Kenneth Lo. Although his work is just counted as a photographic work, it is also sharing the same characteristics of traditional Chinese paintings. It gives the audience a new perspective for viewing a street.

Both work listed above leads me to think on making a new perspective on a street. But, what can be a work which outdo from the “Nathan Road” and applied on a road which I familiar with?

Nowadays, Illustration or independent comics are popular in Hong Kong. Many local artist or illustrators have been published their work on several popular magazine like Touch, Milk, MingPao Weekly or even the free newspaper am730. Most of their work is around the culture of Hong Kong, like Stella So and Siuhak. Audience loves to read them as they love the view and the vision from the artist towards the local issues or phenomenon. Also, with the locals reading habits, people would love to read images more than thousands of words. Hence, I realized the possibilities of making a book with images.

Also, the number of people who love taking photos is increasing in this decade due to the breakthrough of camera technology. The concern, appreciation and the sense in photos are increased. Therefore, a book with a powerful photo is possible for attracting local readers.

Map of Hong Kong Island with King's Road marked in yellow (click to enlarge)

Background of King’s Road

King’s Road is the longest street on Hong Kong Island by the road number. It runs through half of the East District. It starts from Tin Hau (next to Causeway Bay) to Tai Koo (the end-side of Quarry Bay). It is the like the blood vessel which connected the area around North Point and Quarry Bay. Most of important buildings and popular places and all located on it. It is 4.2 km long with 2 tram railways on it. 5 MTR stations are located on the base of it. It is the crowed street of the East districts.

The relation between King’s Road and me

Although I have not ever lived on King’s Road, it is a road which I always go. When I was young and lived in North Point, it is a street which I walked every day. It is the way which my mother goes to the wet market with me. After we moved, I still always go on it as the bus route which I take is running on it. I loved to sit on the bus’ top decker on the way to home when I was in secondary school. One of the reason is I can view King’s Road at a high angle. I always love to watch what’s happening on the street. Until now, I still go on King’s Road every day as it is the way for me to go and take MTR to school.

The value of King’s Road

Besides my own feelings on King’s Road, it is also full of its own story. For example, Sunbeam Theatre, the famous local venue for playing Chinese-opera, is located on that road for half century. Besides, the road is full of Hong Kong Style multi-functional buildings. But time is changing, the local society is keep changing in this few years. Many old districts is going or planning to redevelop. Who know King’s Road (and its nearest community) will not be the next? It is sure it will happen on King’s Road in someday in future.

Work based on King’s road

One more reason for choosing King’s Road as the main topic is the limited records of it. We can found many books talk about Nathan Road in Hong Kong book stores but it is no any specific book which focuses on King’s Road only. Although it is not older than Nathan Road, it is the longest in Hong Kong Island. It is full of its story and got its own value. As the less record of King’s Road, I know many people lived in New Territories may not know it. They don’t know there is a long road on Hong Kong Island

As the main content of this work is image, real photographic image is used as the main style used on this work. By talking still photos, the view of King's Road in nowadays can be captured, recorded and presented.

But in the other hand, still images taking by camera got its limitation. It is just the image which captured in a specific moment in this age. In the other words, you cannot capture the images which happened before or even the images flowed in your min now. So, some paragraphs are used for showing some background information and stories about that part of the road.

It is not a work which just created for the graduation, but also wanted to achieve the following objectives. The outcome of this project would be a artwork about King's Road. And it would be a work which gives the audience to learn more about King's Road. Furthermore, it hopes to increase the public awareness of the traditional buildings and local community.