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Pavan Shamdasani

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.
“All our members have a love for Hong Kong’s unique architecture and culture,” says member Echo Delta. “Many of these sites are private or fenced off, inaccessible to most people. They either continue rotting or are sold off and bulldozed before they are documented. These stories present a Hong Kong that has a truly unique history […] Our main ethos is to tell the forgotten stories.”
Finding locations isn’t easy: old books are scoured, old maps perused, forums checked and sites evaluated on historical and architectural merit. An initial reconnais­sance assesses the security of a site before the team decides to access it – most of what HK Urbex does is technically illegal.
“The challenge is always the fact that we are tres­passing,” says Echo Delta. “We know the dangers and risks if we are caught, but that has only happened a few times, luckily without involving the police. Even though we knowingly trespass, we make it a policy to never damage property or remove anything from the site. It’s like we were never there.”
Globally, most Urbex-explored sites are in areas largely abandoned, but in Hong Kong urban density means many sites are hidden in plain sight, amid the buzz of a city with some of the most expensive real estate on Earth, which means conservation is not always a priority.
“The Hong Kong government has a not-so-friendly policy towards heritage preservation,” says Ghost, “but we’ve helped heritage activist groups get a view into sites to fight for better preservation. In some cases, we’ve helped temporarily save them, such as the State Theatre building, in North Point.”

For Nox, who at 29 is the youngest member of the group, HK Urbex’s adrenaline-fuelled activism is encapsulated by a journey he took underground with the crew, deep into the Ma On Shan mines.
“There was almost a void of sensation, you start hearing details you normally wouldn’t – the creaking of wood from a rotten support beam as you step over it,” he says. “We were walking for hours […] probably 100 metres underground with only a crappy printed map and our senses to guide us – no internet, no GPS, nothing.”
And HK Urbex has already set its sights on a follow-up to Spatial Cemetery.
“We have so many unpublished locations and time is running out for many of them,” says Ghost. “In as little as 20 years, there won’t be that unique Hong Kong heritage or architecture that truly show­cases the nature of the city.
“There’s no one else out there like us. And the govern­ment should be more active in preserving these places, because it’s also preserving our Hong Kong identity.”











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Hong Kong’s abandoned sites pictured in all their decaying glory

The old Asia Television (ATV) studio building, in Ho Chung, Sai Kung. Photo: HK Urbex

--THE ROCK--Handout image shows the interior of the camp on"The Rock", an old refugee camp for Vietnamese in Hong Kong. [10NOVEMBER2019 FEATURE POST MAGAZINE]CREDIT: HK URBEX

--SEA RANCH--Handout image shows old video games at the Sea Ranch, Lantau Island, Hong Kong, China, 2018.[10NOVEMBER2019 FEATURE POST MAGAZINE]CREDIT: HK URBEX

--SEA RANCH--Handout image shows the empty swimming pool at the Sea Ranch, Lantau Island, Hong Kong, China, 2018.[10NOVEMBER2019 FEATURE POST MAGAZINE]CREDIT: HK URBEX

--THE ROCK--Handout image shows an old fax and transceiver set, on "The Rock", an old refugee camp for Vietnamese in Hong Kong. [10NOVEMBER2019 FEATURE POST MAGAZINE]CREDIT: HK URBEX

--ATV STUDIO--Handout image shows  the old Asia Television Network (ATV) studio in Ho Chung, Sai Kung, in Hong Kong. [10NOVEMBER2019 FEATURE POST MAGAZINE]CREDIT: HK URBEX

--SEA RANCH--Handout image shows a storage room at the Sea Ranch, Lantau Island, Hong Kong, China, 2018.[10NOVEMBER2019 FEATURE POST MAGAZINE]CREDIT: HK URBEX

--SEA RANCH--Handout image shows a disintegrating pool room at the Sea Ranch, Lantau Island, Hong Kong, China, 2018.[10NOVEMBER2019 FEATURE POST MAGAZINE]CREDIT: HK URBEX

The exterior of an abandoned cinema. Photo: HK Urbex

----GOLDEN VALLEY CINEMA--Handout image shows old poster at the Golden Valley Cinema, Kwun Tong, Hong Kong, 2018. [10NOVEMBER2019 FEATURE POST MAGAZINE]CREDIT: HK URBEX

--SEA RANCH--Handout image shows a sign, "Apartments fully booked today" at the Sea Ranch, Lantau Island, Hong Kong, China, 2018.[10NOVEMBER2019 FEATURE POST MAGAZINE]CREDIT: HK URBEX

How China’s traditional villages are falling victim to its global ambitions

The mountainside village of Dapin. Photo: Wang Xiaoyan

--ONE TIME USE ONLY--Handout image shows villager Han Erni holding old photographs in Daipin Village, Shanxi Province, China.  I am 73-year-old with two sons and two daughters. My husband died in 2003. After given 40 yuan as dowry, I was married to the village at the age of 17. When my husband was alive, I took grass from the hill and mixed it with folder to feed pigs. Now I live alone here. I rise up at dawn to work. I make my own lunch and nap for one hour after lunch. When dusk comes, I make dinner and watch TV and sleep at 8pm. I live like that every day.  2017[03NOVEMBER2019 FEATURES CHECKS POST MAGAZINE]CREDIT: Wang Xiaoyan

--ONE TIME USE ONLY--Handout image shows a villager with his sheep, in Daipin Village, Shanxi Province, China. There are two main types of farming in the village. One is traditional crop farming. The other is sheep farming. Before the population loss of the village, nearly every household keeps sheep to supplement their family income.  2017[03NOVEMBER2019 FEATURES CHECKS POST MAGAZINE]CREDIT: Wang Xiaoyan

--ONE TIME USE ONLY--Handout image shows Han Liangzhi and his wife Xing Huaiyu, 69 in Daipin Village, Shanxi Province, China. I am 80 years old and live with my wife Xing Huaiyu, 69. We have a son and daughter. I am an illiterate wood worker. During the big famine in 1961, I was so hungry I left the village for Inner Mongolia. The people there gave me food. ThatÕs the farthest place I have been to in my entire life. Later I went back to the village, working in steelworks, until my retirement at 60 years of age. Earlier this year, I fell ill and canÕt pee. My wife gets heart disease and high blood pressure. My son contracted cerebral thrombus last year and has to take medicine every day. Just medical costs for our whole family cost 4000 yuan a month. Besides rice, we just take medicine every day.  2017[03NOVEMBER2019 FEATURES CHECKS POST MAGAZINE]CREDIT: Wang Xiaoyan

--ONE TIME USE ONLY--Handout image shows Han Shengzhi and his mother Han Erni in Daipin Village, Shanxi Province, China. I am 65-year-old. My mom is 84. My father passed away 26 years ago. I and my mom were the only ones in the family still residing in the village. My mom refused to go to the city as my dad is buried in the mountain in the village. She thinks she can see him when she can see the mountain. I am a  farmer. I donÕt want to leave the village as I want to be with my mother. My mom was sent to our family when she was eight years old so that she can become our familyÕs bride when she grows up. She sacrificed a lot brining us up. I canÕt abandon her when she is old. So I stayed in the village. HanÕs mother died in Sep 2018 after the interview.  2017[03NOVEMBER2019 FEATURES CHECKS POST MAGAZINE]CREDIT: Wang Xiaoyan

--ONE TIME USE ONLY--Handout image shows a villager holding the The Stone Dragon Royal Lord's head, in Daipin Village, Shanxi Province, China. The Stone Dragon Royal Lord is the patron saint of the village which has blessed the area with rain for 800 years. Soon after 1949, the government forbade people form deity worshipping as part of its crackdown on superstition. In 1954, villager secretly prayed to him for rain which was discovered by officials who brought soldiers to chop down the head of the Stone Dragon Royal Lord statute. The severed head was stored in a drawer of the village government office. Villagers eventually stole the head and reunited it with his decapitated body.  (First-person account as told to Daipin Village â The Last 13 People author Wang Xiaoyan in interview). 2018[03NOVEMBER2019 FEATURES CHECKS POST MAGAZINE]CREDIT: Wang Xiaoyan

--ONE TIME USE ONLY--Handout image shows villager Han Liangzhi and his chickens in Daipin Village, Shanxi Province, China.  I am 56-year-old. I have seven siblings. I left the village for the first time to work in town in 1990 at 27 years of age. I worked in brickworks and as a chef at mines. In 2002, as the mine boss refused to give me overtime pay, I left the mine in a rage and came back to the village and stayed to this day. I worked outside for 12 years so that I can save enough to get a wife. All these years, I had kept asking people to help me find a wife. I have met around 40 women in matchmaking. Every time, I needed to rent a car, pay for the meal of the matchmaker and buy milk for the womanÕs family which cost me around 200 yuan. I earned only 100 yuan per month when I worked in town. Every matchmaking cost me two monthsÕ salary. My matchmaking quest was eventually foiled by the rise in the price of milk which increased from 10 yuan a carton to over 50 yuan. Later, people i

--ONE TIME USE ONLY--Handout image shows an man walking through Daipin Village, Shanxi Province, China. There are over 450 houses extant in the village. They are scattered in around 50 locations which also contain cave dwellings, the housing structure commonly found in hilly terrain in Shanxi province. 2017[03NOVEMBER2019 FEATURES CHECKS POST MAGAZINE]CREDIT: Wang Xiaoyan

--ONE TIME USE ONLY--Handout image shows elderly villagers posing for a photograph in Daipin Village, Shanxi Province, China. 2017[03NOVEMBER2019 FEATURES CHECKS POST MAGAZINE]CREDIT: Wang Xiaoyan

--ONE TIME USE ONLY--Handout image shows villagers troupe costumes drying in Daipin Village, Shanxi Province, China.  The village has its own troupe dating back to the Qing dynasty. Its performances were not stopped even during the Cultural Revolution. As the country opened up, villagers left for city for work.  The troupe didnÕt get enough members and the last performance was held in 1990. Although no more performances are held, villagers still take the troupe costumes out regularly for drying.  2018[03NOVEMBER2019 FEATURES CHECKS POST MAGAZINE]CREDIT: Wang Xiaoyan

--ONE TIME USE ONLY--Handout image shows villager Han Shaungzhu in Daipin Village, Shanxi Province, China. Han Shaungzhu  I am an 83-year-old widower. My wife passed away last year after we were together for 65 years. My two sons and four daughters all left the village. A sheep shepherd, solder and village accountant, I witnessed how the Japanese ransacked the village during the Sino-Japanese war. During the Cultural Revolution, I was a village official. In 1967, I received the government edit to crack down on superstition. I then dismantled the Stone Dragon Royal Lord Temple. When dismantling it, I prayed to the lord to ask for his forgiveness as I was forced by the government to do it. Together with some villagers, I carried the lord âs statute downhill to hide it in a stone cave. It was not until 1982 that the statue was shown in public again. We later rebuilt his temple. After my wife died last year, my children wanted me to join them in the city. I refused as I want to stay in

Sunset reveals how few of Dapin’s houses remain inhabited. Photo: Wang Xiaoyan

Hong Kong explorers offer rare look into underground air raid tunnels

A member of Hong Kong Urban Exploration explores the tunnels under Leighton Hill. Photo: Urbex

tunnels

The Hong Kong urban adventurers for whom nothing is too tall, or deep, or spooky

Daniel Lau, poses for a photograph at an unknown location. Lau is a member of Exthetics, a group of photographers who climb to the top of towering buildings to snap. Photo: Daniel Lau

Members of "Urbex" - an urban exploration group, pose for a photograph when exploring an abandoned cinema at unknown location in Hong Kong. [22MARCH2016 FEATURE LEAD] PHOTO Courtesy of Urbex

(L to R) Pripyat, Jenkins and Ghost (all pseudonyms), of "Urbex" - an urban exploration group, pose for a photograph when exploring an abandoned building in Tai Kok Tsui. 04MAR16 [2016 FEATURES] SCMP / Bruce Yan

"Urbex" - an urban exploration group, takes a photograph when exploring an abandoned building at unknown location in Hong Kong. [22MARCH2016 FEATURE LEAD] PHOTO HANDOUT

Lawrence Tsui, poses for a selfie at an unknown location in Hong Kong. Tsui is a member of Exthetics, a group of photographers who climb to the top of towering buildings to snap. [22MARCH2016 FEATURES LEAD] PHOTO COURTESY OF Lawrence Tsui

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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’s first book, Spatial Cemetery, is a collection of haunting images shot by an anonymous team of urban explorers who are hoping to preserve the city’s fading heritage.


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