2018

Art@Kowloon City District - Together

Art@Kowloon City District - Together

Art@Kowloon City District - Together

Jan 06, 2018 - Jan 21, 2018

@1a space

“Together” aims to use the participants imaginations and creativity to join the different races, languages and cultures in Tokwawan through words. The languages include Urdu, English and Chinese. Different stories are shared during the conversation and observation, giving us the opportunity to know more about each other and bring us closer to each other. This exhibition consists of 3 parts: First, “ Different Races. All Together”, this part shows the interview with Tokwawan’s ethnic minorities done by the participants. Hafeez’s family, which is a Pakistani family, shared their story of settling in Hong Kong and shared Urdu’s basic knowledge with us. Second, “Different Words. All Together”. In this part, we learn different languages through writing and drawing to build a connection between them. Third, “Different Cultures. All Together”. This part displays “13 Streets” memorable items, hoping to recall the stories of them, and to help discover the culture we had in “13 Streets”.

For further details, please refer to the Chinese version.

Making Room For_

Making Room For_	Cornelia Erdmann Cornelia Erdmann, Freedom to Imagine Window
Cornelia Erdmann Cornelia Erdmann, Freedom to Imagine Window	Benny Lam Benny Lam, Trapped.
Benny Lam Benny Lam, Trapped.	On Tai On Tai, Miniature arts
On Tai On Tai, Caged Man	On Tai On Tai, Caged Man
On Tai On Tai, HongKonger	On Tai On Tai, Miniature UR
Jacky Y.F. Chan, Jacky Y.F. Chan, Making Room for Emotion	Jacky Y.F. Chan Jacky Y.F. Chan, Making Room for Emotion
Jacky Y.F. Chan Jacky Y.F. Chan, Making Room for Emotion	Rina Ko Rina Ko, The Curing Room
Rina Ko Rina Ko, The Curing Room	Rina Ko Rina Ko, The Curing Room
Rina Ko Rina Ko, The Curing Room	Rina Ko Rina Ko, The Curing Room

Making Room For_

Jan 27, 2018 – Feb 25, 2018

@1a space

Opening: 26th January 2018, 6:30 pm

Opening Dialogue: 26th January 2018, 7:30 pm

Discussants (in arbitrary order):

Benny Lam,

Cornelia Erdmann,

Jacky Y.F. Chan,

Rina Ko

On Tai

Honorary Guest Discussants:

Ms Corrin Chan (陳翠兒女士) , Chairlady of Hong Kong Architecture Centre,

Prof. Kurt Yu Keung CHAN (陳育強教授), Adjunct Professor, Department of Fine Arts, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Host: Chang Ping-hung Wallace

Curatorial statement:
The idea of "room" is making room for E-pathy - Making Room for--you and me is nestling our souls in place. Making Room for the self-regulated emptiness is to create a small universe for ourselves. If architects and artists can make room for people of all kinds, it should be more than a physical containment. Rather, should Art have power, our lives within the Room of four walls and a ceiling should be owned and enjoyed by us. Nowadays, amidst the ever-condensing urban concrete jungle of Hong Kong, we are confined within our ‘luxurious’ 100-ft square footages, but our minds should step beyond these boundaries and reach out to where we are looking upon. The invited architects/ artists of this exhibition include young talents who concern our living/ dying environment.

Making Room for_ includes works of four Hong Kong and German artists. By rethinking the concepts of room, artists and curator attempt to explore the pressing social housing issue in Hong Kong. With their personal interpretation of this ‘room’, the team means to understand what and how we live and situate ourselves among given constraints or yet liberate other dimensions for hopeful lives.

Benny Lam has been active in a range of creative media over the last ten years, but recently has devoted his time to show, through photography, the condition of Hong Kong’s fringe communities. From affluent to fringe areas, from business to public good, he walks around the streets and alleys of older districts, using lights and viewpoints to capture scenes not usually seen in the city to record the lives of hidden communities.

Cornelia Erdmann focuses on the light medium, which inspires her to rethink the question of “If the eye is the window to our soul, what is the spatial opening to architecture? ” If window is not just a void that separates the inside from the outside, it will be the interface between public and private mediating between the two realms. For her, making room for the viewing sight bears burdens of emptiness; for the windows are facing Darkness, we are looking towards where we end.

Jacky Y.F. Chan interprets the idea of “room” in a psychological sense, demonstrates his artwork in three ways, including light & colour, visual and psychology. For him, making room for emotion combine only few architectural elements that may have an impact on our psychological senses; one space may also be read through these qualities, they allow us to delaminate spaces into layers of visual perception, in another word the physical space transforms into a perception space. The Artwork represents a space / room, in its limited boundary. There are objects for our interpretation, whether one would focus on the brighter object or the dimmer object, it is up to you, and your emotions.

Rina Ko explores the idea of “room” with a grain of Salt. Since salt is part of our physical make up, present in our blood, sweat, and tears. Its natural properties meant it has been used for ritual cleansing, preserving and seasoning of food, as well as antiseptic qualities for treating wounds. It is also one of the fundamental constituents of nature, and contains within it a microcosm of how our planet works. As both a natural defense and supplement for the human mankind, it signifies ritual cleansing and spiritual authenticity. The work not only wishes to celebrate the value of what has already been existed “salt” for centuries, but also the value of what life is, as a natural process and a collateral beauty. When one would be totally engaged in the work, its pure existence worth more than a thousand words.

On Tai wishes to tell and share the stories of Hong Kong to others. Giving chance for people to look at the living problems in Hong Kong from different perspectives. Livelihood issues like housing, student’s stress and politics etc…. He especially likes to use his works to tell the stories of the old Hong Kong, hoping to keep the diminishing Hong Kong's culture for our next generation through the miniature arts. Telling the stories of the old Hong Kong to our younger generation and exchange their stories with our predecessors …….. and so on and on …….

Short biographies of the artists and curator (in arbitrary order)

Curator:

CHANG Ping Hung, Wallace
Fellow of HKIA; Registered Architect in Hong Kong and China; Associate Professor, Department of Architecture, HKU; Chairman of 1a Space; Director of the Urban Place Research Unit; Visiting Scholar in Harvard-Yenching Institute, Harvard University; Advisory Committee Member on Revitalization of Historic Buildings. He is both an architectural practitioner and theorist on urban design, cultural conservation and community participation. His award-winning designs range from urban washroom to university academic building. Also, he is a social activist to promote a civil consciousness on urban environment, community conservation and sustainable planning, including his recent advocacy on the redevelopment planning and architecture of Shek Tsai Leng [Dills Corner Garden] Elderly Caring District. He has been conducting research with exhibition in Habitat City and Bamboo Theatre. His latest research, Kai Tak River Green Corridor Community Education Project [HKADC 2013 Award of Arts Education, International Award for Public Art 2015], focuses on cultural identity and urban sustainability issues during the urban transformation process in Hong Kong and southern Chinese cities. To recognize his contribution to the promotion of cultural conservation, he was awarded Certificate of Commendation by the Secretary for Home Affairs in 2015.

Participating artists:

Benny Lam

Benny Lam, professional Hong Kong-based photographer, graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design, Canada. He is a member of HKIPP, works for multiple local and international brands and advertising agencies. Over the last ten years Benny has been active in a range of creative media, but recently has devoted his time to show, through photography, the condition of Hong Kong’s fringe communities. From affluent to fringe areas, from business to public good, he walks around the streets and alleys of older districts, using lights and viewpoints to capture scenes not usually seen in the city to record the lives of hidden communities.

For years, he has won numerous local and international awards, such as The Best Photography in HK4As Kam Fan Awards, the Communication Arts Award, Grand Prix in ADSA International Non-profit and Social Advertising Award, LongXi Awards, and Award of Excellence in Photography at Global Society for News Design Awards. His works were been published in Archive,and European Photography etc., and exhibited in the DOX Centre of Contemporary Art in Prague, Czech and Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

Cornelia Erdmann
Cornelia Erdmann is a German visual artist based in Hong Kong. With her background in fine art as well as in architecture she likes to blur the boundaries between creative disciplines and subjects specialising in public art and commissions.

She uses light as an integral medium in her pieces. The intangible light and the physical space have reciprocal qualities and depend on each other which in combination with other materials and/or technologies she employs to create playful site-specific installations that interact and surprise the audience on various levels. She enjoys to collaborate with communities to co-create public artworks that help to build and generate collective memories.

Jacky Y.F. CHAN
Jacky Y.F. CHAN is an artist and architectural designer with a diverse background from the U.K. and his hometown Hong Kong. He studied his Bachelor degree at the Bartlett School of Architecture, U.C.L. (U.K.) and has received his Master of Architecture at the HKU recently. Jacky’s work focuses on the interplay between light and colour, and has always questions how these qualities may inform and impact our psychology and emotions. His humanistic design approach has led him to address and look into some of the current social issues in Hong Kong. Jacky’s latest work ‘The Living Room’ – thesis exploring the perspective spectrum of a dying person through light & colour; has successfully raised awareness on the topic and was celebrated with a nomination for the RIBA President’s Silver Medal.

Rina Ko
Rina Ko completed her Master in Architecture in Chinese University of Hong Kong and was the recipient of the Student Medal of the Year in 2014 in the Annual Award held by the Hong Kong Institute of Architects (HKIA). Her projects, primarily addressing on values in life, received the Best Studio Awards both in 2013 and 2014 within the School, as well as being nominated and shortlisted for the President’s Medal for the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in both years in the United Kingdom.

She worked as a Junior Architect in Herzog & de Meuron for two cultural projects in Hong Kong, the Central Police Station Revitalisation Project in Central and M+ Museum in West Kowloon Cultural District from 2014 to 2017. During these few years, she has also participated as exhibitors in different events including, Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture in 2015, and REVEAL 2 Exhibition in 2016. In earlier years, she had an apprenticeship to an Italian marble sculptor, Cynthia Sah and Nicolas Bertoux, in Tuscany, Italy in 2011.

On Tai (TAI Yau On)
Born in 1979, authentic Hong Kongers

Hong Kong native photographer, working in photography for over 18 years. He is a person who pays attention to detail and quality. Since childhood, he has become obsessed with the miniature things. With his working relationship and dedication to detail, he has gradually become a passion for making miniature artworks. In the choice of subject matter for his artworks, because of his childhood experience and his obsession with old Hong Kong, it always appears the shadow of old Hong Kong in his interests, works and artistic creations.

The purpose of On Tai’s miniature art production, is to trace the past stories through miniature artworks, arouse people's memories of the past and pass on the feelings and culture of old Hong Kong from generation to generation.

In December 2017, On Tai has organized a “Mini Movements”, which is a voluntary visit program based on the theme of “miniature art”, and hopes to share and express the concern and care for people with mobility problems and those in need through this program. Visiting children to promote Hong Kong culture and miniature art to our next generation.

In addition to miniature art, On Tai is actively involved in the creation of various topics on old Hong Kong, including installation art, product design and photography etc, hoping that more people could know the wisdom of their predecessors, hence continuing and passing on the traditions of old Hong Kong continuously.

Our Bones Art Made of Starlight

Our Bones Are Made Of Starlight	Breach by Ranu Mukherjee
Oracle Bones by Ranu Mukherjee	Sophont in Action
Sophont in Action	Sophont in Action
manananggoogle,MOB	manananggoogle,MOB

Our Bones Are Made of Starlight

Mar 24, 2018 – May 06, 2018

@1a space

Exhibition Opening: 23rd March 2018, 6:30 pm

Artist Dialogue: 23rd March 2018, 7:30pm - 8:30pm

Discussants (in arbitrary order): Chris Treggiari, Desirée Holman, Fang Lu, Fernanda D'Agostino and Justin Hoover

Honorary Guest Discussants: Wen Yau (Artist/Researcher)

Host: Nicholas Wong (Poet/ Lecturer, Department of Literature and Cultural Studies, The Education University of Hong Kong)

Live Performance: Desirée Holman’s “Sophont in Action” will be performed episodically during the exhibition period and the opening night.

1a space proudly presents Our Bones Are Made of Starlight, a contemporary art exhibition curated by Justin Hoover
(胡智騰), the 1a space 21st Century Art Incubator – Open Call for Curator curatorial recipient. Our Bones Are Made of Starlight features contemporary artists Desiree Holman, Fernanda D'Agostino, Fang Lu, Ranu Mukherjee, and art group Mail Order Brides (MOB), consisting of Reanne Estrada, Eliza Barrios, and Jenifer Wofford.

This exhibition presents the work of seven female new media and performance artists from San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Beijing. The work range in media to include multi-channel video installation, hybrid-film animation, social practice, and hand-made objects. Together, these works question the gender biases in folk lore and capitalism, investigate cultural evolution in terms of inclusion/exclusion, redefine the rituals of love and loss, and re-envision the fantasy of technological utopia.

To reinvent our cultural mythologies is to express the inequities of our current global order. Layered with humor, surreal locations, and fantastical costumes, these works use the discontents of global capitalism as creative fuel. According to the exhibition curator, “Our Bones Are Made of Starlight reframes the hopes of a generation who were promised a technological utopia yet received nothing more than the trauma of collapse.” This exhibition is about speculative fiction; it is about creating new stories that rewrite our threadbare folk narratives, our misogynistic mythologies and our technological expectations.

Next, the viewer is presented with the work of Mail Order Brides/MOB (or M.O.B. for short.) MOB (Jenifer Wofford, Eliza Barrios, Reanne Estrada) is a trio of Filipina-American artists engaged in an ongoing conversation with culture and gender. Wofford, one of the founding members, was raised in Hong Kong; much of her work deals with the intersection of multiracial identity encompassing feminist narratives and gender politics.

The exhibition Our Bones Are Made of Starlight features “Manananggoogle,” a new performative installation featuring MOB as the mythical folk-nightmare leaders of a globalized tech corporation monolith presenting a new corporate “on-boarding” experience.

MOB has engaged in multiple projects with an entrepreneurial bent: they are currently working as a fictitious group of bloodthirsty corporate executives, managing and leading the fictitious and shadowy tech-giant Manananggoogle (a portmanteau of “manananggal” and Google). The manananggal is a mythical, vampire-like creature of the Philippines-- a malevolent, human-eating, blood-sucking female demon capable of severing its upper torso and sprouting huge bat-like wings to fly into the night in search of its victims. It is also a story that Illuminates the deep roots of misogyny, and how injust suspicions of strong women are perpetuated through seemingly innocuous traditional folktales. MOB adapts this mythology to transform their identities into more predatory, dominant, alpha executives. In a sort of corporate culture drag, these three artists present domineering, murderous and hilarious personae that lead company “on-boarding” trainings as performances, lectures, and other industrially related activities. MOB is presenting an installation with photo, video and web components related to this theme.

Ranu Mukherjee, an American of a mixed-heritage, presents the work Extracted Trilogy, a film originally commissioned by the Asian Art Museum, consisting of three individual chapters Breach, Elixir and Oracle Bones. This work in total is a fifteen-minute hybrid animation inspired by the Chinese historic text the Classic of Mountains and Seas or 山海經 . In addition, the work layers in the complex history of the American Government’s Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 in which the US banned Chinese immigration the US for 63 years. This film interweaves visual elements from this ancient text along with elements of the histories of immigration by Chinese to America during the time of the Gold Rush period at the height of political tensions surrounding the Chinese Exclusion Act. This work destabilizes our shared origin stories and creates new narratives of otherness and creolization.

Fernanda D’Agostino, is a pioneer in the use of outdoor video projections in public art, has completed twenty-five public commissions and fifteen solo exhibitions since 1984. She will present an interactive new media projection in the outdoor area as well as have a video work in the exhibition. The work she presents will be titled Peace Movements (Mudras). It will be a single channel video.

"Borderline" investigates the intersection of climate change, mass migration and embodied trauma, through interactive video, creative coding, projections, live performance and sound. The project has been conceived as a kit of parts that includes a “tarot deck” of multiple scenes of creative code manipulating video and audio files in real time. Additional code, shifting between the scenes, creates ever-changing juxtapositions of imagery open to “interpretation,” in much the same way that a “hand” of Tarot cards combines into new meanings with each reshuffling of the deck. The shifting forces shaping contemporary life are constantly in play. Creative coding in "Borderline" mimics the uncertainty of our times, keeping viewers off balance and guessing what comes next. For "Peace Movements (Mudras) " the mood of the "Borderline" programming was revisited to emphasize our power to heal each other and the planet through dedication to practices that foster inner peace, compassion and clarity. The "Our Bones are Made of Starlight" opening night projections will be fully interactive code based programming from "Peace Movements (Mudras) ". For the remaining run of the show, video loops recorded directly from live programming in "Borderline/In/Body" will act as a talisman for the Borderline project as a whole. A common thread through both versions is the notion of the body as the site of peace, healing and conversely, trauma.

Finally, the exhibition will present the work Sea of Silence, a 29-minute film by Chinese filmmaker Fang Lu, with dialogue in Cantonese and Mandarin and with English and Chinese subtitles. Sea of Silence is a work in three chapters centered on the idea of speaking about love as a form of action. Shot in the Israeli desert in 2015, three female protagonists, as three distinctive individuals, talk to the camera about their specific events and experiences encountering love. They are situated in a remote desert with elements of home life and living accommodation detailing each scene. These domestic elements such as cups and saucers, housewares, beds and the like, are positioned unprotected and uncovered in the untamed environment to establish new habitats as new spaces and forms of living.

This exhibition includes a participatory social practice project that asks the audience to draw a picture of gender equity and add it to the exhibition. Space and tools to create these pictures will be provided in the gallery and all participation will be included. This social practice project is an educational element to explore the audience’s perspectives around equity, gender and current events. The project asks, “What does gender equity look like?”

About the Curator:

Justin Charles Hoover (胡智騰), is the founder and principle of Collective Action Studio, an art and curatorial practice company based out of San Francisco and the Curator of the ChineseAmerican Museum, Los Angeles. Hoover works with the visual arts to explore issues of displacement, liminal languages, and cultural disjuncture. His work spans media from performance and video, to sculpture, installation and public art. His heritage is Chinese-RussianAmerican, and his work seeks to engage communities and develop collaborative and educational projects. Hoover began his curatorial career in 2004 with the founding of The Garage Biennale, and experimental art space in San Francisco and has worked with museums, festivals, fairs and cultural centers across the world. Hoover holds bachelor’s degrees in Peace Studies and French Literature from Colgate University, a master’s degree in New Genres Fine Art from the San Francisco Art Institute and a master’s degree of Public Administration of International Management from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.

Collective Action Studio (CAS) produces artwork, curates exhibitions, and develops educational projects. We work in collaboration with artists, communities and institutions to develop access, equity, and positive learning outcomes. Our goal is to advance social justice, to bolster resilient communities and enable the public to engage with the arts.

Founded and directed by Justin Charles and Chris Treggiari, Collective Action Studio includes an evolving cast of artistic collaborators. Projects are often co-developed with strategic partners and include a wide range of artists non-profits, cultural centers, museums, arts commissions, art galleries, art fairs, festivals and more.

Transparent Cube Space

Transparent Cube Space

Transparent Cube Space

May 19, 2018 - Jun 17, 2018

@1a space

Exhibition Opening: 18th May 2018, 7:00 pm

The audience should follow a designated route to view the exhibition. Audiences are invited to re-experience 'White Cube' and encouraged to reconsider

The exhibition discusses on the definition of "white cube" in order to review the function of exhibition space and the trend of art presentation in the 21st century. Through this project, curator aims to reimagine and reshape the relationship between themselves, art space, audiences, art trend and the society.

1a space proudly presents Transparent Cube Space, a contemporary art exhibition curated by Cheung King-wai Reds (張景威). The project was the second phase of 1a space 's 21st Century Art Incubator. what construct a viewing experience.

About the Curator:

Cheung King-wai Reds
Reds Cheung is an independence visual art professional, experienced in local visual arts sector with good relations contact and excellent communication skills. Beside independent practice in visual arts and culture studies, Reds is also familiar with teaching and activity organizing in art, with working experience at art gallery and visual arts institute. Specialize in community art, installation art, drawing and visual communication design. He is now exploring in the way to foster young audience in visual arts by practicing experimental art curating, and parallel to local creative industry development

Artist in Hospital

Scenery of Dialogue Artist in Hospital	Scenery of Dialogue Artist in Hospital
Scenery of Dialogue Artist in Hospital	Time, Timetable, Therapy Pak Sheung Chuen 2015-2016 Digital Prints 42 x 30 cm (each)
By your side: The Durable Wobbly Ma Margaret Chu 2018 Paper, Wood, Balls Dimensions Variable	Time Cinema Cheung Shuk Yee 2018 Light boxes, Acrylic stands, Fabric with embroidery and Mural Dimensions Variable
Time Cinema Cheung Shuk Yee 2018 Light boxes, Acrylic stands, Fabric with embroidery and Mural Dimensions Variable	Kowloon Hospital chan Sai Lok 2018 acrylic on canvas, ink and acrylic on silk, with acrylic board 41 x 66.5cm each, 10 pieces 41 x 41cm each, 2 pieces
Be Born Ki Wong 2018 Watercolour paper 56cm X 76cm (each)

Scenery of Dialogue – Artist In Hospital

Jun 29, 2018 – Jul 29, 2018

@1a space

Exhibition Opening: 3th July 2018, 3-7:00 pm

Hospital seems like a mysterious place which always inexplicably accompanied by a bit of anxiety. Is it because people habitually regard it as a taboo to talk about? We want to re-examine this deep-rooted and stereotyped image of hospital.

In the past year, “Art in Hospital” has invited five artists to participate the artist-in-residence project, “Artist in Hospital”. Through their interactions with medical staff, rehabilitators, patients and carers, what they experienced, and their inspiration are reflected and expressed in an artistic way. (About “Artist in Hospital” project:

https://www.facebook.com/events/271382746768631/)

In the “Scenery of Dialogue—Artist in Hospital” exhibition in 1a space, artists will present a different kind of hospital. Participating artists include Chan Sai-lok, Cheng Shuk Yee Eastman, Ki Wong, Margaret Chu and Pak Sheung Chuen.

Fast art