In ancient Greek mythology, the Apollonian represents humanity’s rationality and orderliness, while the Dionysian symbolizes its emotion and instinct. In our daily lives, the two forces are juxtaposed, but also balance and complement one another. When people enter a state of inebriation, when they immerse themselves in carnivalesque revelry, it is possible to transcend the ego, to untether from any and all constraints. This state is the closest to that of genuine, innocent human condition.

Chun Wai’s photo collection – A Revelrous Heterotopia – focuses on capturing an instance of such revelry and intoxication. For more than 20 years since 1995, he recorded diligently the snippets of life that transpired in the Hong Kong Sevens, each captured moment examined for its inner meaning and metaphor. Rendered in a theatrical style and relaying a single context, over a hundred photographs are deliberately dissociated from time and space, presented as if happening during a single day. This de-contextualized and de-temporalized expression establishes the spatial-temporal uncertainty of those captured in the frame, with characters appearing as if emerging from a space different form our own. A Reverlous Heterotopia is both a light-hearted, humorous collection of photographs, and a photo essay that presents a different kind of thought.