Photographing Liberation
Liberation of Hong Kong, ca. August–September 1945. Photographer unknown. Nitrate. Admiralty Official Collection, A 30545, Imperial War Museum. In the foreground of this black and white photograph, a group of Asian women and children drink from cups, which a white man in uniform appears to be distributing (centre).
In a recent article for Trans Asia Photography, I wrote about photographs taken by British military photographers in Hong Kong at the end of World War II, during the transition from Japanese back to British colonial rule, asking what they can tell us about the liberatory knowledges that Asian women colonial subjects cultivated, or might have, throughout years of war and occupation. Originally published May 2023.