“In western society, Asian men tend to be regarded as ‘less attractive’,” she says. In her new zine and film, titled Boys of Hong Kong, Leese not only depicts this new wave of less rigid gender identity among Hong Kong’s male youth culture, but also illustrates the diversities that exist amongst them by dismantling some of the misconceptions she’s encountered. “I was at a point in my life where I felt disconnected from my culture and my hometown and I had a strong desire to reconnect and rediscover what I felt I had neglected.”
“This began as something very personal to me,” she says. Though she left when she was 11, the London-based fashion and portrait photographer recently felt compelled to return with her camera. Photographer Alexandra Leese has never forgotten Hong Kong the city of her childhood and the locus of cherished memories.
