At Hong Kong’s Art Basel, painter Chow Chun-fai’s new works transport viewers back to the night in 1997 when the former British colony returned to Chinese rule, displayed in the very exhibition center where one era ended and another began.
That transformation in the city's post-colonial era has taken a drastic turn since 2020, when China imposed a national security law that virtually wiped out dissent. The law drove many middle-class families and young professionals, including artists, to emigrate to democracies like Britain, Canada, Taiwan and the U.S. from what was once a haven for free expression in Asia.
