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Museum of Half Truths

8-30/8/2020, 1a space

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1a space proudly presents the Museum of Half Truths, a group exhibition curated by UK-based curators Rachael Burns and Polly Palmerini, featuring New York and Hong Kong based artist Lau Wai, Singapore-based artist Moses Tan, Hong Kong-based artists Andrew Luk, Stacey Chan Lok Heng and Ip Wai Lung. Museum of Half Truths is the selected project of 1a space’s "The Emerging Talents in Contemporary Art": Open Call for Artist/Curator (International).

Museums and libraries are the repositories of history but they remain flawed and biased in their representation. How can we disrupt the pre-existing structures that surround us? How can we represent fairly our many co-existing and conflicting memories and histories?

The Museum of Half Truths will aim to answer these questions by exploiting the conventions of these institutions to present a playful take on a museum that is transparent about its subjectivity.

Our compulsion to collect, archive and document history is inherently human. These artists draw from personal and historical archives and cultural tropes to investigate the relationship between fact, fiction and memory.

The artists featured question our recording of cultural memory; investigating rituals and traditions; the whitewashing of popular culture; and by memorialising and advocating for underrepresented communities.

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Museum of Half Truths

Opening Reception: 7/8/2020, 6:30pm (Held online over Facebook live)

Facebook live: 

Exhibition: 8- 30/8/2020

Time: Tuesdays to Sundays 11 am – 7 pm (closed on Mondays)
Venue: 1a space
Unit 14, Cattle Depot Artist Village, 63 Ma Tau Kok Road,To Kwa Wan, Kowloon, Hong Kong

**The exhibition will be shown by virtual exhibition until further notice on the opening hours.
 Link to the virtual exhibition: https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=Ko6yspsTD7E **

Enquiry: +852 25290087/ info@oneaspace.org.hk
Facebook: 1a space
Instagram: 1a_space
Website: https://museumofhalftruths.co.uk/

Public Programs 

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1. Artist-led Guided Tour 
Friday 7/8/2020 , 7pm

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The exhibition launches with an artist-led tour of the gallery, and an introduction to the project from the curators of Museum of Half Truths, the exhibiting artists Andrew Luk, Ip Wai Lung, Stacey Chan, Moses Tan and Lau Wai and  1a space. The show launches in a digital format and still aiming for it the audience to be able to investigate the space and engage with the works at show.

*Held online over Facebook live
Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/oneaspace/

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2. Making a Museum - Curator-led workshop
Saturday 8/8/2020, 4-7pm

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Making a Museum is a series of creative exercises, artist talks and provocations looking at building better museums and engaging with archives. We will start with an introduction from the curators, Polly Palmerini and Rachael Burns, to talk about the origins of the project. The artists and provacations will be led by Audrey Albert, ZINE COOP, Wan Chee Michelle Chan and Shireen Marican. 
 
Audrey Albert will start the creative exercises with a Cyanotype workshop rooted in memory. Her project Matter out of Place researches her Chagossian heritage through the personal archives and oral histories of Manchester’s Chagossian community. 

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Beatrix and Forrest of ZINECOOP HK will follow with a workshop that asks visitors to engage with their thoughts and feelings when experiencing artworks; connecting their emotions to the work and creating a zine to document that process. 

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We will then be joined by Wan Chee Michelle Chan to show us around her Hong Kong studio and talk us through the process of working with her Uncle’s personal collections of imagery to create the project Kaufu. 

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Shireen Marican, a Singapore based researcher and writer, will deliver a provocation on museums as spaces for discourse and education for audiences, artists and staff. 

*Held online over Instagram live
Instagram Live: https://www.instagram.com/1a_space/

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3. Screening 
Saturday 8/8/2020, 7-8pm

This screening will present three of the video works featured in the exhibition; I am invincible...on the screen/ False motion tracking, Lau Wai; Karma Cycle, Ip Wai Lung; and Slow Steps, Moses Tan. The works will be introduced by each artist, and the curators will talk through the selection. We will also present the work of some young UK based artists, Emma Crabtree, Hannah Lim, Charles Turner, Victoria Dhal and Freya Pigott. Their works span multiple artforms and mediums, all engaging with the project themes of fact, fiction, memory and myth. 

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*Held online over Facebook live
Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/oneaspace/

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4. Artist Panel Discussion
Friday 14/8/2020, 7-8pm

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The curators and artists Andrew Luk, Ip Wai Lung, Lau Wai, Moses Tan and Stacey Chan, will be in discussion about their practices and the Museum of Half Truths project. The discussion will use the work of the artists as a catalyst to question representation, the documentation of cultural memory and the guardians and gatekeepers of our histories. 

*Held online over Zoom
Zoom Live: bit.ly/30d2QIs
Meeting ID : 922 1321 2040
Passcode : 921629

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5. Care /ing /ful /less - Reading Group 
Sunday 16/8/2020, 6-8pm

This will be a group discussion of a range of texts on the theme of ‘care’, selected by moderator Yang Yeung. The writings touch on perspectives from care-givers and receivers of care; curators and archivists investigating caring within an institution; love, loneliness, homelessness and the ethics of listening. As a group we will use these works as a starting point to consider the role of care in the cultural sector and the wider world. 

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The readings respond to the idea of “care” proposed by the curators of Museum of Half Truths. The readings are chosen not so that there will be a comprehensive philosophical or theoretical argument on care, but more that they are first, hinges into the sensibility of our times, and second, keys to our power of learning from each other. All readings touch upon some form of restraint – psychological, social, political... All touch upon justice and freedom in some ways. All point to the possibilities of effecting change for good. Perhaps the readings could be regarded as the beginning of a book list that we can collectively shape in the long run, caring for the evolution of care in our lives and others’ together.” - Yang Yeung

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All are welcome to listen along and contribute their thoughts and questions. If you would be interested as a participant to join the panel and interact with the speakers, get in touch: info@museumofhalftruths.co.uk

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Download Reading List:https://museumofhalftruths.co.uk/Care-ing-ful-less

*Held online over Zoom
Zoom Live: bit.ly/39CQEUo
Passcode : 910253

*The public programs are free of charge, all are welcome.

​About the Curators

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Rachael Burns
Rachael Burns (b. 1994, UK) is a curator, arts organiser and educator based in Manchester. She graduated from BA Photography at Manchester School of Art in 2016 and has since worked with artists from around the UK, for young people programs, and in exhibition production.

She is a founding member of FORM; a collective of artists who work together through a series of experiments in collaboration. FORM have exhibited across the UK and in 2019 held the inaugural Derby Photo Fringe to coincide with Format International Photography Festival.

Rachael is currently working as Events Coordinator for Redeye, the Photography Network and with Photovoice, a charity working with photography ethically to promote positive social change alongside other freelance projects.
https://rachael-burns.co.uk/

Polly Palmerini
Polly Palmerini (b. 1995, Italy) is curator, educator and artist based in Manchester UK.
Currently a Teaching Assistant on the BA (Hons) Photography at Manchester School of Art and Club Tutor for National Saturday Club in Art and Design. Her practice concentrates on materiality, malleability and the performative quality of everyday objects, which an interest in objects found in her surroundings.

Since graduating, she has been working as an art workshop lead for young people round Greater Manchester, which encourage widening participation and engagement in art. Polly has worked on the production and curation of several shows in Manchester, UK through a series of exhibition involving current undergraduate students and also through open calls.
Pollypalmerini.com

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About Participating Artists

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(In no particular order) 

Andrew Luk
Born in 1988 in the USA, Andrew Luk was raised in Hong Kong.

His work has been exhibited internationally including in Next Act, Asia Society, Hong Kong, China (2020) ; Very Natural Actions, Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong, China (2019) ; Serious Games, HOW Art Museum, Shanghai, China (2019) ; Appropriate Responses for Featherless Bipeds with Broad Flat Nails, chi K11 art museum, Shanghai, China (2018) ; A Tree Fell in the Forest, and No One’s There, Power Station of Art, Shanghai, China (2018) ; Practice, de Sarthe Gallery, Hong Kong, China (2017) ; and At Wits’ End, Kula Bazaar ACC, Gwangju, Korea (2016).

His work is included in public collections worldwide, including: Smart Museum of Art, Chicago, IL, USA; Frank. F. Yang Art and Education Foundation, Shenyang, China; University of Chicago, Booth School of Business, Chicago, IL, USA; and K11 Art Foundation, Hong Kong, China. 

He is the recipient of the 2016 Project Grant from the Hong Kong Arts Development Council and the 2014 Emerging Artist Grant from the Hong Kong Arts Development Council. 

Andrew Luk graduated from the New England School of Art and Design (NESAD) in Boston, Massachusetts with a BFA in 2010. In the same year, he also graduated from Suffolk University in Boston, Massachusetts with a BA in European History. 

Andrew Luk lives and works in Hong Kong.
https://www.andrewluk.com/

Stacey CHAN Lok Heng
Born in 1995 in Australia, Stacey CHAN Lok Heng lives and works in Hong Kong. She receives her BA from the Academy of Visual Arts in Hong Kong Baptist University who is the recipient of the Vitamin D Award and AVA Award at AVA BA GradShow 2017 by her work “Normalised”. By removing the usual form of everyday objects, Chan’s works bring viewers to a redefinition of matter through our own practical experience and relationship with objects. Her visual form of nothingness maximises audience’s thinking and imagination on artworks, which allows objects to speak for itself in creating a psychological dialogue with viewers. Chan has participated in exhibitions in Austrian Museum of Contemporary Art (MAK) and galleries in Hong Kong, Berlin, Croatia and Switzerland. Her works are in Uli Sigg’s collection and Hong Kong private collection.
www.staceychan.com/untitled-white　

Lau Wai
Born in Hong Kong, Wai currently lives and works in New York and Hong Kong. Her work utilizes photography, video, drawing and installation exploring the multilateral constructions of identity in relation to race, gender and the notion of belonging. She attempts to investigate how history, fiction, personal memory and virtuality collided in the process of identity formation through personal and historical archives, cinematic imagery, popular culture and digital media.
www.wai-lau.com

Moses Tan
Moses Tan (b. 1986, Singapore) is a Singapore-based artist whose work explores histories that intersect with queer theory and politics while looking at melancholia and shame as points of departure. Working with drawing, video and installation, his interest lies in the use of subtlety and codes in the articulation of narratives. He graduated from LASALLE College of the Arts with a BA(Hons) in Fine Arts and a BA(Hons) in Chemistry and Biological Chemistry from Nanyang Technological University.
www.mosestanqy.com/memorial-for-boogie-street

Ip Wai Lung

Ip Wai Lung is a meditation enthusiast who embraces impermanence, as conventional religious believes are static, yet the world is constantly in flux. He intervenes with life by mediation in an attempt to process all the impermanence, queerness, and ambiguity the world throws at him. Through art Ip stages meditation, he detaches and engages with the consciousness and unconscious. This constantly shifting of roles, modes, and discipline is the backbone of his art works. His works might be plain and dry at first glance, yet there is a never-ending restlessness bursting from the seams.

Artworks of Ip Wai Lung, an entrepreneur-turned-self-taught-artist, have been exhibited at galleries and art shows in New York, Hong Kong, Shanghai and across South East Asia, collected by private collector. His latest business venture is The ScreenGuru, a large-scale, data-driven intelligent outdoor display network for video art in Hong Kong and beyond.

www.ipwailung.com/KARMA-CYCLE

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