Noto Peninsula (Solo Display)
Artist: Wong Cho Yi
Date: 23 February – 6 March 2026
Venue: Exhibition Gallery on M/F, New Asia College Ch’ien Mu Library
Statement:
During the summer of 2024, I travelled at my own expense to the earthquake-stricken Noto region in Japan, with the intention of documenting the situation through photography and creating portrait images for local residents.
“Noto Peninsula ” is the title of this photography exhibition. In the early hours of 1 January 2024, while many around the world were celebrating the New Year, the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture was struck by a magnitude 7.6 earthquake. In the depths of winter, amid snow and sub-zero temperatures, homes were destroyed in an instant or swallowed by the sea. For the people there, that day did not mark a new beginning, but the moment their world collapsed.
My initial attention to Noto arose in 2023, when I encountered news of the “Noto Peninsula Art Festival” and had intended to submit a proposal. While researching the region, I learned that it is both seismically active and geographically remote; many young people have left, resulting in a rapidly ageing population. Around the same time, I was deeply moved by the final scene of the film “A City of Sadness”, in which a family faces the camera to take a family portrait. As an artist working primarily with photography, I hoped to engage with the idea of the “family photograph” through artistic practice, by creating family images for elderly residents in the area. Although I never completed the application, the subsequent earthquake made me realise that I did not need to wait for an institutional opportunity, I could set out immediately and attempt to realise this project on my own terms.
My first stop was Wajima, where I happened to meet several Japanese volunteers. Through them, I was introduced to the owner of a local confectionery shop and a few residents. One man, using Google Translate, told me that his house had collapsed. I replied with the word “Genki” (stay well), and he responded with a quiet smile. In that brief moment of exchange, I made a portrait of him. These short, fragile encounters formed subtle yet significant bonds between us.
Later, the confectionery shop owner invited me to join a dinner with volunteers and residents, and I stayed one night at his home. We spoke in a mixture of English, Mandarin and Japanese. More important than the specific language, however, was the sense of sincerity and trust that emerged between us. By coincidence, I later discovered that his friend was one of the curators of the Noto Peninsula Art Festival, linking my original, unrealised plan back to the people I had met on the ground.
I have come to understand that this is why I was there, and why I began working with photography in the first place: to build connections with others and to share experiences and emotions that feel irreducibly real. At the same time, I often hesitate to lift my camera towards them, and struggle to convince myself to photograph those who have lost their homes. This tension—between the impulse to witness and the ethics of looking—runs through the entire project.
As the journey approached its end, my chest felt as if it were slowly opening. I believe that we share a fundamental human connection, a shared language of empathy that goes beyond words. For me, the power of photography lies in the act of attentive looking: to gaze intently at the world, and, in doing so, to also confront one’s own inner self. This journey has become a milestone in my practice, and this exhibition is my way of expressing gratitude to the people of Ishikawa Prefecture.
Poster:
Exhibits:
More photos are available in New Asia College Library Exhibition Archive.