Hong Kong’s abandoned sites pictured in all their decaying glory
- HK Urbex’s first book, Spatial Cemetery, is a collection of haunting images shot by an anonymous team of urban explorers
- They are hoping their actions help preserve the city’s fading heritage
HK Urbex – Hong Kong Urban Exploration – is an underground collective that documents deserted, off-limits spaces, its photographers protecting their identities with hats, hoods, masks and pseudonyms.
Pictures taken over the six years the group has been exploring these hidden sites can be found on a Facebook page that has attracted more than 20,000 followers.
This month, HK Urbex’s first book, Spatial Cemetery: A Journey Beneath the Surface of Hidden Hong Kong, will be released by local publisher Blacksmith Books.
“HK Urbex has grown into a platform for us to showcase the many distinctive sites and unique spaces that make Hong Kong what it is, magical places fast being pulled down and destroyed,” says a member who goes by the moniker “Ghost”.
Inspired by Urbex groups in the United States, Europe and Australia, a handful of photographers and filmmakers founded a Hong Kong chapter after stumbling upon an abandoned site in 2013 while scouting locations for an unrelated film project.