Just arrived! Happy that some of my prints has been acquired by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art for their collection! Thank you for the opportunities, and thank you to everyone who has supported me along the way!

The letters had only 140 miles to travel, but they would take 60 years to be delivered. When his daughter finally received her father’s farewell after a protracted negotiation with Taiwan’s government, she was in her 60s, twice his age when he died. ‘‘I kept crying, because I could now read what my father had written,’’ said the daughter, Guo Su-jen. ‘‘If I’d never seen his writing, I would have no sense of him as a living person. His writing makes him alive again. Without it, he would live only in my imagination, how I picture him.’’

The W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund is pleased to announce the list of finalists in the 41st annual W. Eugene Smith Grant for Humanistic Photography. Finalists have also been named in the Smith Fund’s 3rd annual Student category and 24th annual Howard Chapnick Grant, which is awarded to an individual for leadership in any field ancillary to photojournalism, such as picture editing, research, education and management.

Really excited to be selected as a Main Prize Honorable Mention of Phmuseum 2020 Photography Grant! Thank you Magnum Foundation for all the support along the way in producing this project!

Thank you Artco, for their Photo ONE's Diverse Features on my work Last Letters: A Photographic Investigation on White Terror after I won the Best Portfolio Review Award in Photo ONE Taipei!

Photography, who is it for? That was the question we set out to explore with the 2022 festival. Monica Allende wanted to reflect on photography’s possibilities to influence positive change in society. The 33 international artists from 19 different countries embraced the theme and used Landskrona’s majestic historical buildings and open spaces to take us on a journey of visual exploration, using mixed formats to narrate a diversity of topics.

Under the regime of dictator Chiang Kai-Shek, tens of thousands of people were arrested and killed in Taiwan between 1948 and 1987. However, the country has never come to terms with the “White Terror”. Photographer H. C. Kwok wants to change that with his pictures by giving the victims a voice.

Billy H.C. Kwok's work: Last Letters, A Photographic Investigation of White Terror has been awarded as Best Portfolio in "Photo ONE Taipei : International Festival of Photography and Images in 2019. Solo Exhibition will be held in the Dynasty Gallery.

Magnum Foundation’s Photography and Social Justice Program expands diversity and creativity in the field of documentary photography through capacity-building and critical explorations of photography and social change.

A Poem which is inspired by the project Last Letters: It Should Be Me Who is Looking After You Only the night before execution are they given a pen and paper to say what will be unseen for decades. He takes the pen, writes the message to his unborn child. Before long I will leave this earth. His wife feels their child inside her. All she knows is his disappearance, the emptiness. Alas to be unable to see you, to hug you, to kiss you once The child arrives. Her father is part of a flock of magpies. I am heartbroken, he says. My regret is unending. All she knows is her father is not there. All she knows is nothing. For sixty years she knows not a thing. Until the letter arrives. Another takes his pen, writes a message to his son. On this earth you will never see your father again. His father is a tawny owl on a blue oak branch. This is the saddest thing, he tells him. The son is lonely. You must not forget your father. This man writes to his mother. Your son believes that people who die have a spirit. She feels him near her like a robin flying through an open window. Your son is determined to come to your side every day to keep in touch. She feels the draft of wings on her face. To see your peaceful eyes, to make sure you eat three meals a day. So many days, so many years later the letters arrive. The words fly off the paper to settle on tear drops, tiny lanterns, drifting.

This year’s Talents present a close, sharp look at one of the most important subjects today: the human condition. While several of the submissions were born out of the Covid-19 pandemic, they offer beautiful, hopeful and refreshing statements on the power of photography to share our experience and – possibly – to effect a shift in perspective.

Last Letters (2019), unearthed the words of the thousands of political prisoners killed under martial law, from 1949 to 1987, in letters written—but never delivered— to their loved ones on the eves of their executions. Using archives and official records, Kwok tracked down the intended recipients of these letters, then captured the moment they finally got to read their loved one’s words.

What should we do with Chiang Kai-shek's controversial legacy? In a way, isn't he the origin of what is today the Taiwanese nation? Chiang Kai-shek's legacy remains controversial. Many would like to get rid of the statues representing him here and there.

Introducing a brand new online exhibition celebrating artists shaping the future of photography. Following the award-winning first edition in 2020, Foam Talent Digital is back, liberating the photographs from their frames and taking them beyond the museum walls. The exhibition pushes the boundaries of the medium and explores the outlines of its future form in the digital realm, supported by audio, video and interactive elements.⁠⁠