HKI Gallery presents Hong Kong artist Gretchen So’s black‑and‑white photography exhibition The World Trade Center: Before Memory, transporting viewers back to an era when the Twin Towers were still part of everyday life. The photographs were taken on medium format film in the early 1990s, and some are being presented publicly for the first time. They show how the World Trade Center was embedded in New York’s urban fabric. Seen today, they also reveal how photographs can acquire new meanings over time.

Rather than presenting the World Trade Center primarily as an architectural landmark or monumental presence, So photographed the towers from streets, bridges, waterfronts and other public spaces across the city and beyond. Their familiar outlines recur throughout the series: sometimes commanding attention, sometimes receding quietly into the distance, and rarely becoming the sole subject of the photograph. The towers appear as witnesses to the everyday life of metropolitan New York.

Gallery address: 12D Derrick Industrial Building, 49 Wong Chuk Hang Road