Poser 7: Airports is the seventh installment of Ho Tam’s photobook series Poser in which he takes portraits of people in public spaces, repeatedly, with one shot on a film camera. In this edition, all of the photographs are shot in airports, at Chicago O’Hare, Tokyo Narita and Bangkok Suvarnabhumi. Airports, often a place of transience, are a particularly fascinating place to capture portraits of the panoply of people, who in just a few hours, won’t be there any longer. Even more uncanny are the striking similarities and joyful expressions Tam is able to capture. This photobook is humorous and at times touching, in a place we normally associate with the banal.
Ho Tam is an artist from Hong Kong, educated in Toronto. He works across a wide range of mediums, including writings, photography, and film, in which he explores identity, politics, and public space. He is a graduate of the Whitney Independent Study Program and holds an MFA from Bard College. Ho Tam is also the founder of Hotam, an independent publisher based in Toronto.
