ʻHong Sing Smiledʼ self-portrait drawing workshop in collaboration with
Lily Choʼs scholarship on ʻAnticipating Citizenship: Chinese Head Tax Photographsʼ

This drawing workshop is inspired by the smile of Hong Sing from an early Chinese
head tax photograph (1910). Led by the artist, participants will co-author the pages of a
graphic publication making new connections between historical and contemporary
experiences of citizenship, immigration and resistance. Joanne Hui will lead participants
through a warm up comic jam session, an exercise in co-authoring comic pages.
Followed by a hands on activity of drawing and recording your own and othersʼ smiles
and nuanced facial expressions in anticipation of Lily Choʼs lecture on the proposition of
the lack of affection and smiles in the Chinese Head Tax forms and the present day
Passport photo. The outcome of the creations from this workshop will be reproduced
and published in the co-authored graphic novel which is to be the final product of the
workshop. The goal of the workshop will be to question and creatively explore the
meanings produced around the border crossings we make in our daily lives, with a hope
to reveal moments of agency made possible through their recording.