Skip to content

New West photo exhibition focuses on stray cats of Southeast Asia

New West residents are invited to strut on down to Front Street to check out some stray cats.
Finn Leahy
A collection of photographs by New West resident Finn Kichiji Leahy is now on display at Old Crow Coffee Co. While doing a semester in Singapore, the SFU student snapped lots of photos - including some that are now part of the Stray Cats of Southeast Asia exhibition.

New West residents are invited to strut on down to Front Street to check out some stray cats.

New Westminster resident Finn Kichiji Leahy recently returned from a four-month trip to Southeast Asia, where he photographed many of the sights – including stray cats.

“In Taipei, my hostel was down an alley behind the train station. Stepping out one day, I noticed a stray cat hopping along the awnings. When it was in front of the air conditioner, it did things that cats do where it circled around a few times and then lay down. And then it looked right at me,” he recalls. “I took a picture.”

Leahy, a fourth-year geography student at Simon Fraser University, spent a semester studying in Singapore.

“Singapore is kind of in a central location in the region,” he says. “With all the budget airlines that they have, it’s pretty reasonable to go around and see different things.”

From Singapore, Leahy visited Johor Bahru and Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, and Taipei in Taiwan.

“There are far more stray animals in Southeast Asia than there are here,” he says. “I suspected I might see some more stray animals, just because it’s not as cold there.”

While hanging out in areas with markets and restaurants, Leahy photographed many of the cats he spotted.

“I just tried to take photos of everything I saw that was interesting,” he says. “Sometimes these cats would just be staring at me.”

Some of those photographs are now on display at Old Crow Coffee Co. at 655 Front St.

“It’s 15 pieces. Seven cats, and each cat is paired with the neighbourhood where I took the photo of the cat – you can kind of see the context of where the cat lives,” Leahy says. “There’s one picture of a dog. I didn’t see as many dogs. Cats are far more common.”

The Stray Cats of Southeast Asia exhibition will be on display at Old Crow Coffee Co., until mid-April.