I went to the library wanting to find photobooks that were by a photographer whom I have not heard of. This led me to Chun Wai’s Cubicle Life. The photobook chronicles his journey over the past two years, threading door to door in the cubicles of Yee Wa Building.

Cubicle Life serves as a poignant documentary piece, centered on Hong Kong’s housing issues. It draws its from the small living quarters partitioned by wooden boards so characteristic of Hong Kong life.

I found the book a heavy read as images were spliced with anecdotes from residents of these cubicles and writings about the conditions of these living spaces. What is great however is how Chun Wai retained the privacy and dignity of his subject matters with his carefully framed close-up shots. He also employs midshots which articulates claustrophobic spaces like the corridors or make-shift wooden alcove that make up the cubicle architecture.

The book is enclosed within a grey, cloth hard cover, alluding to its heavy theme. After experiencing the entire work, I liked it that the book was in a square shape also. It stimulated how our impressions of cubicle spaces being one that is too small for movement (a square being four dead ends in close proximity). Yet, upon opening the book and getting to know the different cubicle lives, the book opens up to a much wider rectangle plane.

Chun Wai keeps most of his shots in 1:1; even with a longer image, those shots are often flanked by the clutter of furniture or objects. Other times, he might push a portrait shot very close to the edge of the page, for me that evoked a certain sense of aspiration but also a resignation towards the status quo; the line of vision of the sitter often extends beyond the frame of which its form sits in. Beyond his photos, the different layouts of the images also further accentuated Chun Wai’s message.

Hong Kong has many stories despite many of its inhabitant’s small and trapped homes.