Ethan Luk
Pedagogies of Site Fellowship | Field Notes
the face of the loved one is a composite of all the faces before. Courtesy of Ethan Luk.
In 2020, I encountered an article by Fionnuala McHugh, titled “Raising an Objection,” published in Post Magazine on July 26, 2020. The article tells the story of two Hong Kong expats, Richard and David, who have embarked on the arduous journey of trying to adopt as a couple in a locality where queer folks rarely get approved to do so. The article cannot be found on any digital platforms, and the only evidence I have of its existence is the flimsy hard copy I have kept since 2020.
In 2024, I adapted the article into a book-length poem titled Richard & David. The poem primarily inhabits the voice of Richard and David’s non-existent child, who attempts to uncover and understand the narrative of their parents’ story. The poem is supplemented by two other kinds of voices– quotes from McHugh’s article and quotes from a variety of writers, ranging from poets, theorists, to visual artists and novelists I read as I wrote the poem. Although Richard & David is primarily a portrait of a marriage and a speculative identity, the poem arrives at a more startling equation: The process of reading and writing is analogous to the process of making a family of one’s own.
the face of the loved one is a composite of all the faces before synthesizes both experiences in 2020 and 2024 and pushes further by layering a new medium, film, onto the continued afterlife of the article. The film, a meta-documentary of sorts, records my process of writing, remixing, and translating a queer narrative. Employing gestures of scanning, annotating, laminating, and doubling, the face of the loved one… trafficks in an arena of smeared boundaries. The film emerges as an invented site where text meets abstraction and image, speculative identities become kin, fiction slips into autobiography, and family uncloaks itself as strangers. Amidst the entangled strata the film traverses, the face of the loved one… ultimately reveals the multitudes behind a simple news story and the making of an art work. It is not only the loved one who is a composite of past faces and voices, but also storytelling, writing, and filmmaking themselves. I hope this project illuminates the many ways to hold and fold a text, ourselves, and the people around us.
Stills from the face of the loved one is a composite of all the faces before.
All photos courtesy of Ethan Luk.
Field Notes from the Fellows share provisional mappings, poetic fragments, visual fieldnotes, and digital captures generated by participants of the Pedagogies of Site Fellowship ahead of their culminating event on June 7, 2025 at Dia Chelsea. To learn more about the program and event, please visit the Dia website.