About us #2
Experimentation in Programming

The first exhibition venue of 1a space was set up in 1998 in an old government warehouse at Oil Street, North Point. The inaugural project 'National Museum or Gallery?' defined the tone of 1a space's approach in programming. With a television commercial as a prologue, curators, gallery directors and critics were invited to respond to the then state of art system in Hong Kong, and to comment on the hidden agenda of public (national museum) and private (gallery). In January 2000, the original site being retrieved, 1a space moved and temporarily maintained only an office space. 'justaspace', held six months later, invited curators and artworkers to come up with exhibition proposals and progress under a changing Hong Kong cultural environment.

Among the more than 100 exhibitions and activities, 1a space determined to feature various programmes which adopted curatorial leading approach, collective creative approach, artist oriented approach and cross-disciplinary approach. In 2005, we have organized a series of photography exhibition, 'Muse Gaze', 'Collective Space' and 'Walk! Don't Run', which aroused discussions on artistic, social and cultural issues. 'Matter Dis-matter', 'Sculpture Non-sculpture', 'Painting Un-painting' in 2004 was a back-to-basic series focus on and re-interpret a specific artform. 'Corner of Dialogue', an exhibition series started in 2002, has engaged experienced and emerging artists in dialogue through exhibition.

To provide an exhibition and dialogue platform for artists of different stages is an objective of 1a space. 'Tree．Man' (2003) is a selected retrospective and exhibition of new work by veteran artist Danny Yung. In 2004, we support experienced and professional individual artists through solo exhibitions, such as Kum Chi Keung's 'Flying Library', Leung Mei-ping's 'In Search of Insomnious Sheep' and Young Hay's 'Trespassing- Digital Interaction'. In 2006, we have ‘Jerry Kwan’s Retrospective Exhibition’ and Choi Yan-chi’s ‘[Re-] Vision’. In 2008, we have Tam Wai Ping’s ‘Life Pilgrimages’. We also place strong emphasis on facilitating the production of works by emerging artists, 'Three Pieces of Thousand Layers Pudding' (2005), 'In flash!' (1999 & 2000), 'Expectation to Expectation' (2001), young artists were at the centre stage.

1a space also emphasis cross-media and cross-disciplinary projects which throw new light on contemporary visual art practices, originated from different artforms and went towards a dialectic re-interpretation of the media. They are ‘What Burns Never Return platform #8: Hong Kong – From Objective Map to Subjective Mapping’ (2009), ‘Altered Ambiance’ (2008), ‘Writing Machine Collective – 2nd edition ‘ (2006), ‘Barcode + Sound ‘ (2006), ‘Writing Machine Collective’ (2004), ‘Emomentless ‘ (2004), 'Visible Sound / Time Machine' (2004), 'Frame Work' (2003), 'Un Double' (2003), Meat (2002), 'Triple Play' (2002), 'Paintings-Figures-Paintings' (2002), 'Damage' (2000), 'Video Ensemble' (1999), 'All You Can Eat' (1999), 'SiXhibition' (1999), ' Too Much, Too Little, Too Late ' (1999) and 'Painting HK' (1998).