Image: Chris Siu, Tattoo of a Wilting Bauhinia - Adelaide, South Australia, (detail), 2023, from the series *Then We Keep Living Vol. 2.* Courtesy of the artist.

February 5 - May 17, 2024

finissage tickets

Artist talk: Friday 5 April 5:30-6:30pm

list of works

The Exhibition Space, 154 Angas St, Kaurna Yarta

Free entry, all welcome

You can find Riot on an Empty Street in The Mill’s Gallery I, located at 154 Angas St, Kaurna Yarta (Adelaide).
Gallery I is open Monday-Friday, 10am-4pm.
Accessibility
The Mill has two entrances, the main entrance on the corner of Angas and Gunson Street and an accessible entrance further down Angas Street.
Both doors are locked from the outside, there is a doorbell on the main door that will alert The Mill team. They will meet you at the accessible entrance to welcome you into the building.
The Mill has concrete flooring throughout with no internal steps and a disability toilet on site.
Read more in-depth information on our accessibility web page.

The Mill is excited to present Riot on an Empty Street, a new exhibition of photographs by Chris Siu derived from his ongoing project Then We Keep Living. Through medium format analogue photography, Chris explores his relationship with his homeland, Hong Kong. The work navigates the experience of mass civil unrest, as experienced in Hong Kong and living in diaspora here in Australia. The powerful images give the viewer a sense of dis-ease and tension, incorporating protest, the body, signifiers of colonial and authoritarian resistance and the political power of the masses contrasted with bone-aching isolation associated with cultural displacement, marginalisation and disconnection. Chris’ approach to image-making is cultural and academic as well as deeply feeling and intuitive. He offers us a very personal entry point into a political situation that many have observed through the cycles of journalism.

Chris Siu developed Riot on an Empty Street as part of The Mill’s Visual Arts Studio Residency program presented in cooperation with the Mahmood Martin Foundation.

My residency at The Mill has been dedicated to developing the long-term photography project titled Then We Keep Living. The project navigates my relationship with Hong Kong through a two-volume narrative presented in medium format analogue photography. This exploration takes place against the backdrop of the 2019 mass civil unrest in Hong Kong, followed by my life in diaspora here in Australia.
The two respective volumes delve into representations of dispossession and defiance amidst the city’s ongoing socio-political transformation, contrasting with poignant reflections on diasporic experience and its isolating facets associated with cultural displacement, marginalisation, and disconnection. The project stands as a testament to the nuanced interplay of political dilemmas, self-discovery, and the frequently overlooked, profound repercussions of civil unrest.
Chris Siu is a Hong Kong-born photographic artist living and working on Kaurna Yerta in Tarntanya Adelaide. Informed by the traditions of documentary photography, Chris’s work investigates and chronicles the intricate relationships that lie within his surrounding social landscapes. Chris’s practice is profoundly influenced by the flux of sociopolitical happenings in his homeland Hong Kong and his ever-changing place within it. Through exploring notions of layered histories and geopolitics, Chris’s work seeks to offer a reflection on personal and communal experience, pivoting around representations of civil unrest, diasporic experience, cultural displacement and marginality within contemporary existence.
Chris has exhibited throughout Australia, beginning with his feature at the 2019 Head On Photo Festival. Subsequently, he has exhibited at venues including Nexus Arts, Adelaide Contemporary Experimental, Centre for Contemporary Photography, and Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts.