The Handbook

"The Handbook is a visual archive of gestures used by protestors from the Hong Kong Anti-Extradition Bill Protests in 2019-2020. The black-and-white collection comprises an informative vacuum-packed book, a poster showing an infographic of the thirteen hand signals used in the protests, and a video of a scripted performance that reconstructs the human chain and demonstrates the semiotic vocabulary of the hand gestures. By combining these materials, the project questions the conventional understanding of archives and the records they collect.

Alice Wan donated these three items to the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam, where their preservation acknowledges the sociopolitical value of the gestures and the historical events from which they emerged."