Blue Lotus Gallery is delighted to revisit Shooting Hoops, Austin Bell’s viral and ambitious body of work in which the American photographer documented all 2,549 of Hong Kong’s outdoor basketball courts.
Originally released in January 2025, Shooting Hoops quickly gained international attention for its scale, precision, and striking visual language. In this new exhibition, the series is presented through a fresh curatorial lens, revealing the courts in a more abstract form for the first time.
Navigating Hong Kong exclusively by public transport, Bell methodically traversed the city’s full geographic and social breadth, from dense urban centres to outlying islands. Using aerial photography, he uncovered basketball courts tucked between housing estates, schools, flyovers, and high-rise towers, highlighting both their ubiquity and vivid graphic designs. Seen from above, these courts form bold geometric compositions, bursts of colour set against the city’s famously vertical and compressed urban fabric.
Bell’s interest in Hong Kong’s basketball courts began in 2017, when he was struck by their vivid colours and integration into everyday neighbourhood life. In a city defined by density, these courts function as vital communal spaces, their graphic designs becoming especially striking when viewed from above.
What began as curiosity became a rigorous, city-wide undertaking. Over multiple visits, Bell spent more than 140 days shooting and captured over 40,000 photographs, ultimately documenting every court and offering a rare portrait of Hong Kong’s distinct urban fabric.
Opening on 15 January as part of Sheung Wan Gallery Open Night, the exhibition invites both first-time viewers and those returning to the work to encounter Shooting Hoops anew, offering a fresh perspective on this unique and widely celebrated body of work.
The second edition of the book will be available at the gallery throughout the exhibition, alongside a selection of limited-edition prints. A double-sided 1,000-piece puzzle will also be released to coincide with the show.