Extremely Recalcitrant II

Archival inkjet prints, engraving on plexiglass, wooden frame, set of 2, 44 x 57.1 x 4.5 cm (each).

Source: The HMS Hermes, one of Britain's newest aircraft carriers by United Press International Photo, vintage silver print, 18 x 23 cm, 1961. First entered service in 1959, HMS Hermes was not involved in any combat and was considered as a surplus to operational requirements. One of its rare actions is to support the Hong Kong government's raids on the anti-British leftist's major bases in the early morning of August 4, 1967. Policemen and troops were airlifted by helicopters from Hermes to the roofs of three buildings in North Point. The only battle Hermes was directly involved in the Falkland War in 1982, shortly before it was decommissioned. In 1987 it was sold to India.

The words “Extremely Recalcitrant”is a comment used by Magistrate Enoch Light describing the fourteen schoolgirls who were charged for obstructing police officers or trepassing on school property during the 1967 riot in Hong Kong. The girls had been excluded from the court for being “unruly and disrespectful” (as reported in the South China Morning Post, Nov 18, 1967). Susan Sontag describes photographs as “a way of imprisoning reality, understood as recalcitrant, inaccessible; of making it stand still...” (On Photography, 1977).