esea contemporary co-presents with Queer East, Off the Grid, On the Page: Archiving Hong Kong’s Pre-Internet Queer History, an event bringing together moving-image works by Hong Kong artist Anson Mak with a talk drawing on her research as project consultant for the archive Hong Kong LGBTQ+ Printed Matter in the Pre-Internet Era.

The works in this programme sit within a broader history of queer moving-image practice in Hong Kong, at a time when sexual diversity remained highly taboo and many LGBTQ+ lives, desires and communities were largely absent from mainstream representation. Across the screening and talk, the programme considers how queer histories can be recovered, revisited and understood through cultural materials that might otherwise remain overlooked.

Mak will introduce materials from the archive, including those documenting the decriminalisation of homosexual sex under British colonial law in Hong Kong — a turning point that helped galvanise LGBTQ+ activism in the early 1990s. She will also explore the intersections of feminist and queer movements, the role of independent zines, and the creative and resourceful ways people navigated dating and connection before the arrival of the internet and dating apps.