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South China Morning Post

Artist South Ho talks about his work and new solo exhibition Wandering Daily

It's rare to catch artist and photographer South Ho Siu-nam in front of the camera, but when you do, it turns out he's quite a natural. 'I know what to give the photo­grapher,' says Ho, breaking his searing camera-ready gaze with a playful smile and breezy confidence. 'I know all the tricks.' On the roof of Wah Luen Industrial Centre, in Fo Tan, Ho poses against a lush mountainous backdrop dotted with industrial warehouses and housing complexes. His studio is 11 floors below. 'It's great feng shui, actually, but these buildings only appeared around five years ago,' he says, gesturing towards the housing estates. 'Before that all you could see from here were green mountains.' Observing the city and articulating its flux is second nature to the artist, who's been actively documenting the local landscape since 2005. Me, My White Sneakers, and Shoelaces (2025) is part of the South Ho Siu Nam: Wandering Daily exhibition at Blindspot Gallery. Photo: courtesy artist and Blindspot Gallery Over the years, it's not only Hong Kong's topography that Ho's been cataloguing. He's become the Hong Kong art world's favourite photographer, arriving at exhibition openings with camera in hand to capture community moments. He co-founded two of his own spaces – (2012-2017) and NewPark in 2022 – and is a well-established artist in his own right, too, known for his 'Every Daily' series from 2013 and its black-and-white wide shots of the cityscape superimposed with colourful grids. When we meet, Ho has just returned from a trip to Kyoto, Japan, where his work is being shown at the Kyotographie International Photography Festival. The week before, he opened 'Wandering Daily', a solo show at Blindspot Gallery in Wong Chuk Hang, featuring iterations on his 'Every Daily' series and works in which he's experimented with new techniques and media. On view is It's golden (2025), a diptych that depicts a blurred, almost nostalgic view of the city on acrylic with 24K gold leaf. To create the piece, Ho used a pinhole camera and walked from Victoria Peak to Lion Rock . 'I wanted to see how the city has changed in the past five years from the perspective of these two important peaks,' he says. South Ho's Me, My White Sneakers, and Shoelaces (2025) at Blindspot Gallery. Photo: courtesy artist and Blindspot Gallery The artist also staged a rare performance titled Me, My White Sneakers, and Shoelaces (2025) at the exhibition opening. For it, he wore a pair of trainers from which 100-metre-long shoelaces sprung forth in a windy, maze-like arrangement across the gallery floor. Requiring careful navigation, audience members tiptoed, jumped and dodged the laces to avoid tripping, as Ho marched around the space trailing them behind him. While serving as a metaphor for navigating dense cities and convoluted situations, another inspiration behind the work stemmed from things accumulating as we age, just as the shoelace lengthens. 'As you get older you have more responsibilities,' says Ho. 'More restrictions, more memories. It all adds on.'