Exhibiting Franki Raffles: Asia and Women’s Work.

The exhibition Franki Raffles: Asia and Women’s Work, co-curated by Dr Catherine Spencer, Senior Lecturer in Art History, and Dr Vivian K. Sheng, Lecturer in Art History at the University of Hong Kong, opened in the Ground Floor Gallery of Run Run Shaw Tower, University of Hong Kong, on 27 April and will run until 22 May. The exhibition features images from the Franki Raffles Photography Collection at the University of St Andrews, focusing on photographs made during a journey Raffles took with her partner and daughter between 1984 and 1985 via the Trans-Siberian Railway to Asia. This exhibition contextualises Raffles’s photographs from Hong Kong and mainland China within her wider journey through Eastern Europe and Asia and her overarching practice, to reflect on the possibilities and challenges of feminist solidarity, and on the changing relationships between women and, labour during this volatile decade. Part of the Impact Project Between Women: Feminist Documentary Photography in its Transnational Contexts led by Spencer, the exhibition is the first time the photographer’s work has been shown in Asia. Sheng and Spencer also presented a talk about Raffles's work at Asia Art Archive as part of the exhibition launch. Photo credit: Wei Ziyang.