turf: Garden in To Kwa Wan Artist-in-residence programme

‘turf: Garden in To Kwa Wan’ is the first artist-in-residence programme of 1a space in 2006. Two UK artists, namely Emma Rushton and Derek Tyman, are invited to present this community art project from late March to April. The project will be the third in a series of related projects presented by the artists to feature gardens constructed in exhibitions spaces through the collaboration with communities.

For ‘turf: Garden in To Kwa Wan’, the artists will live in To Kwa Wan and interact with its neighborhood. They will invite the people who are living or working around the area to donate a plant or flower to be displayed in a “garden” they will realize in 1a space gallery. People could simply bring their plant or flower to 1a space at Cattle Depot Artists Village from 24 March to­ 5 April. In return, the artists will give them a free book which was produced by them specifically for this project. In particular, they have invited Kwong Lee, an artist based in Manchester, England and who has links with Hong Kong, to make a project to be included in this book.

Emma and Derek’s interest in gardens began in 2003 when they took a series of photographs in their neighborhood in Manchester. Many gardens conform to social propriety; they however, were interested in recording gardens that did not follow established patterns or rules but revealed a micro-history of everyday practices and social activities of people on their ‘turf’.