Crab Seniors 蟹伯樂園 (2016-2018, self-published in 2019)
“At Wu Kai Sha, the pier comes alive at the crack of dawn every morning. The ocean is filled with seniors from around the neighbourhood and across town.”
A senior (who is a friend of my mother) once told me about this pier when I taught her swimming to prepare for her triathlon. Out of curiosity, I visited the pier and brought along my underwater camera to photograph as I swim. I discovered that some of the seniors go there to keep up with their physical mobility via swimming. Some go there to train for triathlons and ocean marathons. Some don't even know how to swim yet bring along their floatboards to do their own invented aqua therapy. Some go there to mingle and chat with friends in the middle of the ocean, and some bring along their grandchildren and teach them swimming.
Between the summers of 2016 to 2018, I joined them often. They would show me their ways of being with water and share with me their wisdom in life, and I would photograph them in return. The camera became my tool to bond with these seniors. As time goes by, I felt I became a part of this community.
Crab Seniors (adopting the pier’s Chinese nickname 蟹伯樂園) is a photographic series that captures the community of seniors in this water park paradise, reflecting their varying ways of passing time at the ocean in their ageing years.
The series was shown as part of the opening night projection at the 15th edition of Angkor Photo Festival & Workshops. It also won the International Women Photography Award (France) in 2019. In the same year, a selection of the work was self-published as a 24-page zine alongside, Like a Fish, as a paired publication of One Pier, Two Stories.
