How visible is a city’s colonial past? This question lies at the heart of the exhibition Invisible City by artist Jimmi Wing Ka Ho, a photographic and film-based investigation set in the Chinese metropolis of Qingdao. From 1898 to 1914, Qingdao was under German colonial rule – a chapter in history whose traces remain visible in the cityscape and in cultural memory to this day.
The artist’s research begins with around 200 historical photographs from the archive of the Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum – images once intended to idealize German urban planning in China. Building on this material, he sets out in search of the invisible: forgotten stories, layered memories, and the myths that surround colonial heritage. His photographs and video works, created on-site in Qingdao, reframe the archival material in a personal, contemporary, and critical context.
The exhibition unfolds in three parts. It begins with a view of an unfamiliar, fragmented city whose identity is only gradually revealed to be modern-day Qingdao – a place shaped by colonial intervention during the German leasehold period known bureaucratically as the "Kiautschou Territory."
The second section focuses on colonial infrastructure, particularly the city’s sewer system – a place around which local myths still circulate. One such story tells of German spare parts stored underground, wrapped in oiled paper. The artist references this myth by wrapping archival photographs in similar paper, creating a poetic gesture that questions the ways in which history is preserved, hidden, or distorted.
In the final part, visitors are invited to explore present-day Qingdao. Through images and film, the city is shown as a multifaceted place where colonial history, tourism, and personal memory intersect.
With Invisible City, Jimmi Wing Ka Ho creates a counter-narrative to traditional colonial historiography. He views archives not as repositories of objective truth, but as dynamic spaces of negotiation. Photography becomes a means of making hidden stories visible – and of challenging how we see both the past and the present.
Cologne, too, is part of this story. Street names such as Lansstraße, Iltisstraße, or Takustraße still commemorate figures involved in German colonial violence – mostly unnoticed in everyday urban life. Invisible City aims to bring these traces back into view and invites us to see the city as a living archive and to participate in shaping a critical culture of remembrance.
The exhibition is part of the Artist Meets Archive program of the Internationale Photoszene Köln. Now in its fourth edition, the program brings international artists together with photographic collections from Cologne-based institutions. The aim is to open up archives, question their narratives, and recontextualize them in new ways.
Artist Meets Archive 2024/2025 is a cooperative project of the Internationale Photoszene Köln with the Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum, the Kölnisches Stadtmuseum, Museum Ludwig, Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, and the Dombauarchiv.
The Artist
Jimmi Wing Ka Ho (*1993, Hong Kong) is a visual artist and documentary photographer. He holds a degree from the Royal College of Art, London. His work has been exhibited at institutions including The Photographers’ Gallery (London), Horikawa Oike Gallery (Kyoto), and the Hong Kong Photobook Festival. In 2021/22, he received the Postgraduate Bursary from the Royal Photographic Society and was nominated for the C/O Berlin Talent Award. His series So Close and Yet So Far Away (2019–2023) takes viewers on a journey through Hong Kong’s colonial and migration history, drawing from various archives.
For more information head over to the Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum website.
Tagged 02/09