From commissioned character performances to fan-organised birthday celebrations, these stories examine how people transform their emotional connections with fictional characters into real-world experiences, relationships and communities.

My role: Story development, reporting, interviews, photography, and video production.

This was not a story I originally pitched. After completing the planned interviews with the reporter, I asked residents for permission to spend more time in their rooms and photograph the spaces around them.

Objects became traces of memory and migration. One resident played old Chinese pop songs from his computer and spoke about the beauty — and loneliness — of living here, before quickly insisting that he was not lonely at all.

I moved through their everyday rhythms: meals, Chinese television, Hong Kong news, conversations and quiet time. What stayed with me was the way they had created a small world of familiarity far from home — a place containing both solitude and companionship.