Woodcut printing has always maintained a close relationship with societies in contemporary history, with civic campaigns, democratic movements and political reforms all leaving their footprints through this medium. In the 1930s, writer LU Xun set up a woodcut workshop and viewed it as a tool for critiquing realities and reflecting lives at the bottom social echelon. During the war in China against Japanese invasion, woodcut as a movement turned radical. Oil paint and xuan paper were scarce due to material shortages, but woodblocks and carving knives used for woodcut were easy to obtain; this convenient artistic medium became an effective propaganda tool for the Communist Party during the war times. Leftist artists leverage the dramatic tension created by woodcut images and its rapid printing speed to express their political ideals. In 2020, I now document the anti-regime movement taking place in Hong Kong using the leftist woodcut concept.
