Photos of Iraq by Hong Kong photographer explore war and humanity via chance encounters

Hongkonger Thomas Chan initially saw photography as a way to preserve the memories of his travels. For the avid explorer, photos became a visual diary. But he wanted to delve deeper into his craft. “I wanted to challenge myself and be creative in my journey, and turn passive sightseeing into active creation,” he says. As part of this challenge, he headed to Iraq in March to engage in what he calls a photographic experiment “in which one stranger relies on another stranger to understand a strange place”. Each morning, Chan asked a random taxi driver to take him to a place they themselves wanted to go. The requests took him on journeys to unknown destinations. The 28-year-old was on a mission to experience chance encounters – and he found them from the start. “On my first day in Iraq, a taxi driver named Ali took me to the burial place of his entire family who died during the Iraq war,” Chan says, referring to the conflict between a US-led coalition and the Iraqi government from 2003 to 2011. The destination was Wadi-us-Salaam. Spanning 600 hectares (1,485 acres) and containing an estimated 10 million graves, the cemetery in the holy city of Najaf is believed to be the world’s largest. “Ali did not head there for a tour, but to kneel and pray at the graves of his family, a quiet ritual amid an endless sea of tombstones,” Chan says. The encounters piqued the taxi drivers’ curiosity and, at times, left them bewildered. Photos from Chan’s trip to Iraq are now on show at his first solo exhibition, “Stranger on Stranger”, at Wontonmeen, a hostel and creative hub in Hong Kong’s Sham Shui Po neighbourhood, from November 20 to December 5. The exhibition focuses on the connections between images, travel and humanity through chance encounters with strangers. “Unlike a painting, where one canvas takes days to complete, I could fire off 2,000 shots a day, capturing different aspects of the people I met, and the culture I was learning about. I had all these chance encounters that I never imagined,” says Chan, who returned to Hong Kong with more than 10,000 photos taken over eight days in Iraq. The impressive collection is more than just a cross-cultural visual journey. It is an artistic dialogue about trust, curiosity and authenticity, with both parties gaining something from the random and fleeting encounters. Chan got to peel back the layers of the subjects he photographed, revealing family memories, ancient ways of life, people’s coexistence with deadly landmines and his subjects’ sense of identity. In one image, titled Playground, Chan captures the ruinous impact of war. “On the crumbling wall of a ruined building, a faded mural depicted a girl clutching her teddy bear, encircled by scattered bombs – a stark reminder that this had once been a playground, now shattered and forsaken,” Chan says of the scene in the photo. In Innocence, Chan captures the warmth of the Iraqi people. “One day, I met a boy with a bright smile who led me to the animal enclosure in his family’s courtyard and invited me to share a cup of tea,” he says. Chan also turned his lens on the dangers of war that continue to lurk. It is estimated that Iraq has about 25 million unexploded landmines and explosive remnants of war (ERW), making it one of the world’s most landmine-affected countries. Chan explores this in his photo, Mines. “Unwittingly, I wandered into a minefield, only realising it when I spotted a broken toy and the red bricks that marked it as off-limits.” For Chan, life captured through a lens is a way of actively engaging with the world. He found people in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, “remarkably camera-friendly” and happy to chat, unlike his experiences growing up. “In Hong Kong, people grow up in a culture where they are not used to talking to strangers,” says Chan, whose “day job” is a tech entrepreneur. As well as offering an exploration of Iraqi culture, history and everyday life, the photos reflect how an outsider can gain an understanding of, and forge a connection with, an unfamiliar society through photography. The exhibition’s curator, Hong Kong artist Kasper Forest, says each frame in the exhibition captures the chemistry between the photographer and strangers – and viewers are invited to step into this visual ritual, to rediscover forgotten humanity and emotions. Forest adds that in an age of AI-generated images, Chan’s photos are more important than ever. “We need those cumbersome, ritualistic creative methods even more to reclaim our dominion over the real world,” he says, adding that Chan’s work does not rely on algorithms but instead generates truly warm images through the collisions between people. According to Forest, Chan’s photography also challenges conventional tourism and creative frameworks, redefining the relationship between travel and art by transforming it into a process of cultural dialogue and self-discovery. Chan says he plans to continue making connections through photography – and is again visiting offbeat places to make them. For his latest project, he is focusing on the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “Stranger on Stranger” is once again the driving theme. “Right now I am in Palestine [in the West Bank], again having a chance encounter with a taxi driver who introduced me to a local artist who painted graffiti on the separation wall with Israel,” Chan says. “Entering the West Bank is easy for a foreigner; generally, there’s no border check if the visitor is not a Palestinian. But there are rigorous checks when I leave the West Bank. “Arabs in Bethlehem and Jerusalem, despite being just a few kilometres apart, are living vastly different lives. “I wanted to continue Stranger on Stranger on Israel and Palestine, to explore stories on a human level – not just on the differences, but also on the similarities, which the media often neglects.” “Stranger on Stranger”, Wontonmeen, 135 Lai Chi Kok Road, Hong Kong, November 20-December 5. Opening hours: 2pm-8pm (Tuesday to Sunday). Free admission.

Photos of Iraq by Hong Kong photographer explore war and humanity via chance encounters

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The result of trips to unknown destinations, Thomas Chan’s photos in his Hong Kong exhibition are a study in trust, war and identity

The result of trips to unknown destinations, Thomas Chan’s photos in his Hong Kong exhibition are a study in trust, war and identity