Fung Ming Sum

The Couple

This is an experimental project to explore how Hong Kong citizens picture lesbian couples, and how their minds are framed by their social and cultural backgrounds.

In the experiment, I ran drawing classes with eight people from different sectors of society, also invited them to interview a lesbian who is in a relationship.  During the face-to-face interviews, they were required to plan and ask questions in order to get clues about the appearance of the lesbian’s partner, information that was otherwise undisclosed.  After gathering as many clues as possible, they then drew the face of the lesbian’s partner.

I observed the learning and interview processes throughout, recorded some key dialogue among the participants, and analysed the differences in the facial features in their portraits.

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Before creating the artwork, I discovered, even the public has generally accepted homosexuality, people' impression on LGBT couples (gender expression of sexual minorities in intimate relationships) is still relatively stereotypical and framed in heterosexual model.  I am wondering if participants with different social experience would have dissimilar understandings and expectations toward gender issues and LBGT love relationships, and I am also curious if they would thus form various biases on observation, affecting their objectivity.  

In this experiment, I hope to show the internal differences of participants through "interview content" and “drawings”, and tried to highlight the gaps between some participants’ imaginations on lesbian couples and the reality with “photos”.  Meanwhile, I wish the audience can sense the diversity and ambiguity of lesbians and lesbian couples in areas like appearance, personalities, behaviours and living habits by reading the content of interviews.

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Interviewees: Cleo Lo, Kitty Choi

Participants: Chui Kit Ling, Steph Lee, Wong Hon Kiu, Aleck Kwong, Jessica Tso, Ruo Wei, Cheng Yiu Lam, Law Sin Yee

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2019 - 2020

Digital print on foam board; charcoal and pencil on paper

40.0 x 53.5 cm (2 pieces), 40.0 x 30.0 cm (8 pieces)​​