First published on 23 Jan 2012. Updated on 2 Feb 2012.
I can’t find a title to fully encapsulate Louise Hawson. Photographer? Cultural chronicler? They don’t quite do her justice. This itinerant individual who charmed Sydneysiders with her photography blog dedicated to finding “beauty in the ‘burbs”, 52 suburbs, is at it again during 2012, only this time she’s taking her passport.
Her current project, 52 Suburbs Around the World, will take her to some of the most over-photographed cities in the world “to paint a more intimate picture of them than you normally see.” Accompanying her on this epic journey is her eight-year old daughter Coco, and along with a year of home schooling and succumbing to various exotic illnesses, Louise will avoid the regular tourist locations to emphasise the beauty that lies on the fringes of the fashionable.
Louise, how’s it going?
It’s going well, but let me just blow my nose – that’s partly how it’s going. I’ve come down with myriad health issues, within the first two weeks. I knew they’d come but not this early!
You’ve preempted my first question – on your blog you mentioned a fear of contracting an exotic disease, now that you’ve started exploring a few neighbourhoods, have those fears receded? I guess that’s an emphatic no…
Hong Kong is a fascinating place, I love it, but I don’t love its air.
How is the overseas setting, cultural issues, and difficulties such as the language barrier affecting your work? Is it making things easier or harder?
I came down from the ceiling of concern about that by accepting that this project is different. Even if I couldn’t walk for a week because I came down with something, that is part of the adventure.
But there are a number of specific issues that make it a bit harder: obviously the language barrier. It’s kind of ironic that I journeyed around a lot of suburbs in Sydney that although were very ethnic and had a lot of first generation migrants, I never really struck that many problems; even when I did, they weren’t insurmountable. Here, there’s a bit of a culture of not wanting to talk to the gwai lo [Cantonese slang term for foreigner]. I’m a tourist -- even if I’m not in a tourist area, I’m still a tourist. The lovely Edward Scissorhands [a shop owner from Hong Kong] was rare. We couldn’t speak a word but he understood I was interested in his little shop. He shut up half the shop to let me photograph, and he stood where I asked him to. He got it - but that’s a rarity.
In Australia [for 52 Suburbs] people were very willing, but I was able to explain what I was doing, and cajole if necessary with great charm and wit [laughs]. You can disarm people with a few choice words, but I can’t do that here. I feel like my arm has been cut off because I can’t extend that part of me, and that’s a big part when you’re interacting with people beyond taking the photograph. How do I engage and move into their space?
Another challenge is I’m with my daughter 24/7. Coco is a flexible, great kid, but no eight-year old should be dragged around for hours on end. It’s interesting to a point, but then she might get over it.
The third thing that’s challenging is that in Sydney even though I hadn’t been to Campbelltown, or Lakemba, I knew of these places. There was a familiarity in terms of knowing the reputation of these suburbs. Throughout this entire adventure I’m going to have a problem of choosing suburbs without any familiarity. Also, in Sydney, not only was I familiar but I had 52 of them, here in Hong Kong, and Delhi, I only have four. So there’s a pressure to make sure I pick good ones.
Where does your passion for continuing to go out and find understated beauty come from? Are you at the stage where you have a clear, definite process for each suburb or are you still affected by an almost childlike enthusiasm for new discoveries?
I have the childlike enthusiasm, but I’ve found that sometimes the childlike enthusiasm hides itself – it hasn’t happened yet on this trip, god, I’m only on my third suburb. In Sydney, there would be days where I wasn’t feeling it, but I know that if you look hard enough and walk slow enough you’ll find interesting things every time. What sustains me now, if it isn’t that incredible need to take photographs – which is what drove me in Sydney – is the different places I’m staying in. It comes in spurts, but the underlying feeling is how amazing to be wandering around the streets of a city that is interesting taking photographs. I don’t make a living from this, and physically it’s tiring, keeping your eyes peeled for hours on end, but I’m joyed about the year that lies ahead.
In terms of finding this beauty, is it different in an overseas context, or are you going for the same thing essentially?
My aim is to keep it more or less the same. Some people’s perception of HK is ‘tall buildings, big harbour’. And going to Cheung Chau [suburb #2], tourists go there, but for someone who thinks of Hong Kong as ‘tall buildings, big harbour’ Cheng Chau is a revelation. I try to be hard on myself, in terms of going somewhere where it’s difficult to find beauty and finding it. Cheung Chau is an island in the sea, in a sense it isn’t hard to find beauty there, it has nice trees etc in this case my endeavour is to show people another side of the city they haven’t seen.
Reading the comments on the blog, you seem to have a very dedicated and appreciative following.
I think there’s a core of people who just get it, and appreciate someone stepping outside the comfort zone of life and following a dream – I know that sounds a bit prissy. [Laughs.]
Louise is spending January in Hong Kong, February in New Delhi, March in Istanbul, April-September from Paris to Berlin, October in Rome, and November and December in New York.
Check out the 52 Suburbs blog.
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