TONY MAK
Tony Mak (b. 1991) is a photographer born in Guangdong, China, and currently based in London, UK. His practice spans photography and moving image, exploring cultural landscapes, urban development, regional history, and local communities. His work explores identity and belonging under globalisation, and the evolving relationship between place, history, and memory.
Navigating between East and West, Mak’s practice is shaped by a sense of displacement, often finding himself an 'outsider' in both cultures. Returning to Southern China as an estranged 'insider,' he explores local folk traditions, geography, and history as a way to reconnect with his identity. In Europe, his work examines the past and future of his surroundings, engaging with a way of life shaped by globalisation—one that is now facing uncertainty and disruption. Through photography, he imagines ‘elsewhere’—a space beyond time and place—where personal reflection and historical narratives intersect.
His monograph After The Olympics (Hoxton Mini Press, 2022) explores the urban landscape of Stratford, observing how the Olympic legacy has been regenerated and reshaped over time, while also examining how London redefines its position amid real estate-led urban renewal, revealing the disconnection and tension between capital and local communities. His work has been exhibited in the UK, the Netherlands, Italy, and beyond. In 2022, he got the British Journal of Photography International Photography Awards (Single Image Winner) for a landscape photograph depicting the Qingming Festival ancestor worship rituals in Guangdong. He was also shortlisted for the Royal Photographic Society IPE 165 (2023).
His projects contribute to broader conversations on cultural heritage, globalisation, and transformation, drawing from both historical research and lived experience.
麥明洋 Tony Mak (b. 1991) 是一位攝影師，出生於中國廣東，現居英國倫敦。他的創作橫跨攝影與動態影像，探索文化景觀、城市發展、區域歷史以及在地社群。其作品深入探討全球化時代下的身份認同、歸屬感，以及地方、歷史與記憶之間不斷演變的關係。
遊走於東西方之間，他的創作深受一種「流離失所」的感知所形塑，他常自覺在兩種文化中皆為「局外人」。作為一位疏離的「局內人」重返中國南方，他透過探尋地方民俗傳統、地理與歷史，試圖重新連結自我身份。在歐洲，他的作品則審視周遭環境的過去與未來，並與全球化所形塑的生活方式對話——這種生活方式如今正面臨不確定性與斷裂。透過攝影，他構想出一種「他方」——超越時間與空間的場域，讓個人反思與歷史敘事在此交織。
他的攝影集《After The Olympics》（Hoxton Mini Press, 2022）探討了倫敦Stratford的城市景觀，觀察奧運遺產如何隨時間更新與重塑，同時審視倫敦如何在房地產主導的城市更新中重新定義自身定位，揭示資本與本地社群之間的脫節與矛盾。他的作品曾在英國、荷蘭、意大利等地展出。2022年，他以一幅描繪廣東清明節祭祖儀式的風景攝影作品，贏得了《British Journal of Photography》國際攝影大獎（單幅作品獎）。此外，他也入圍了皇家攝影學會 IPE 165（2023）。
他的創作計畫從歷史研究與生活經驗中汲取靈感，為文化遺產、後殖民、與全球化轉型等更廣泛的對話提供了獨特的視角與貢獻。
MRes Filmmaking, Photography and Electronic Arts (Distinction) (2019)
MA Photography: Image and Electronic Arts (2014)
- Goldsmiths University of London
Publications:
After The Olympics, by Hoxton Mini Press, 2022
Awards:
2023
The Royal Photographic Society IPE 165, Shortlisted
2022
British Journal of Photography International Photography Awards 2021, Single Image Winner
2020
Photo Fringe OPEN20 SOLO, Shortlisted
Group Exhibitions:
2024
Royal Photographic Society International Photography Awards 165 (Bristol, UK): To The West Of The Solitary Sea
2022
BJP International Photography Awards 2021 Exhibition, SeenFifteen Gallery (London, UK), November
2021
Centrale Festival 2021 (Fano, Italy): Video Installation : Qing Ming (To The West Of The Solitary Sea), June
2020
Rotterdam Photo Festival 2020 - Transition (The Netherlands) : To The West Of The Solitary Sea, February
Photo Fringe OPEN20 SOLO (Worthing, UK): To The West Of The Solitary Sea, October
Photo Fringe 2020 (UK): The Legacies, October visit>
Feature:
2020
Another Place Magazine: The Legacies visit>
Reviews:
But Tony’s presentation is anti-didactic. There is no insistence on utopian harmony, nor undue focus on the irreconcilable visions of what Stratford should be. His subject is spatial reality—life and land as they coexist in individual moments. A neat row of docked hire bikes overlook an office landscape. On a building site, heaps of rubble wait to be transported to relay terrain, powder grey stretching from earth to cloudy sky.
- Ravi Ghosh, Deputy Editor of the British Journal of Photography, 2022 (on After The Olympics)
Retreat to Fish Island and Hackney Wick, and you find yourself back in the realm of the human, with buildings, boats and wildflower-sided paths that may be a bit scruffy in places but were clearly made with people in mind. As was all the sharp new waterside housing, even if it does look a bit lost in the industrial angle of the A12.
Tony Mak’s collection of photos in After the Olympics catches the fractured mood of this social cusp that remains a decade on from 2012.
- Sarah Birch, 2022 (on After The Olympics)
What is attractive, though, about your document and your thinking, what is noticeable, is that they act on a broad intellectual spectrum. At times, I would say, you are a common sense phenomenologist, especially when you take photographs, a medium that has a phenomenological bias.
- Ian Jeffery, Art Historian, 2019