A shared space for lifting heaviness, caring for hearts, saying goodbye...
Through a virtual exhibition and an online interactive portal, 9 emerging artists expand their practice with Augmented Reality (AR) technology and invite the audience to touch on adversities, acceptance and resolution in a virtual space of shared experience - anytime, anywhere with their personal digital devices.
Koo Ming Kown Exhibition Gallery,
Lee Shau Kee Communication & Visual Arts Building,
Hong Kong Baptist University,
5 Hereford Road,
Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong
On 12 Sep 2018, Typhoon Mangkhut stroked Hong Kong. Public beaches were damaged, where four rafts from Shek O Public Beach were either washed to the shore or reported missing.
Seven months after the storm, Leisure and Cultural Services Department decided not reinstall the 4 rafts in Shek O Public Beach. News finally came out on 2 May 2019, breaking the hearts of every enthusiastic swimmer. Despite critics such as media and general public targeted the ruthless play by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department, they could only claim that a ‘raft-less’ beach seemed safer for swimmers…
‘If we count back to the day where everything started, what after the aftermath still haunts every heart of hongkonger.’
2020
Sand, galvanized sheets, steel
200 x 200cm
2020
Cement, sand, salt
Set of two, Dimensions variable
2020
Oil pastel on newsprint paper
Set of two, 84.1 x 56.1cm, 84.1 x 3.4cm
Video/ Photo projection
1min 38sec
Make a kite,
Put the most beloved one’s face on the kite
Climb the highest mountain.
Fly the kite.
Neon light Installation
20 x 81cm
Someone says Cantonese is not my mother language
I made a neon light installation to say goodbye.
But I don’t want to say goodbye.
TANG Pak-Hin, Shawn (BA from Academy of Visual Arts Hong Kong Baptist University) is a Hong Kong based artist whose practice encompasses diverse forms and media, including installation, video, sound, and sculpture. Inspired by anecdotes of daily life and personal experiences, his works often integrate topics of time, place, collective memory and cultural boundaries. His site-specific installations are charged with a particular worldview extracted from reality, presenting narratives with ambiguity and subtleness.
“Screaming in silence II” is the newest addition to the “Screaming in silence” series, which focuses on one’s unease and interacts with the city through the materialisation of our anxiety.
A calm crafting process often roots from a raging storm in the heart. The paradoxical fierceness and fragility of each spike on the ceramic boxes symbolise the same dramatic tension within the artist. The visualised soundscape presented in this work explores the relationships between ceramics, sound, this city and the artist.
2020
Porcelain,underglaze,fence
149cm x 90cm x 10cm
Video/ Photo projection
1min 38sec
Make a kite,
Put the most beloved one’s face on the kite
Climb the highest mountain.
Fly the kite.
Neon light Installation
20 x 81cm
Someone says Cantonese is not my mother language
I made a neon light installation to say goodbye.
But I don’t want to say goodbye.
CHAN Kan-Shan, Alice graduated from the Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University with a BA (Hons) in Visual Arts in 2015.
Her main artistic medium is ceramics often featuring tiny and delicate thorn-like spikes. She received the Giant Year Gallery Award in 2015 for her outstanding performance in ceramics and has been taking part in different exhibitions in collaboration with numerous organizations and commercial galleries since then. Her works are in the collection of Hong Kong Heritage Museum and also well regarded by private collectors.
I think of my work as a reminder for myself as well as my audiences that despite the suffocating situation in our city, we may find peace and strength by simply looking up to the sky.
Each of the four images represents a cityscape that I captured in the past few months, at random locations and at different times of day. I arranged the projected images to construct a mural of light that, when viewed from a closer distance one may be able to discern certain details that would give away the images’ actual locations, but in order to see the whole composition, the viewer must move further away. It is my intention to create this non-static viewing experience as a metaphor on how I think we can deal with our difficulties in the current socio-political state.
2021
Mixed media installation, still image light projection
Dimensions variable
Video/ Photo projection
1min 38sec
Make a kite,
Put the most beloved one’s face on the kite
Climb the highest mountain.
Fly the kite.
Neon light Installation
20 x 81cm
Someone says Cantonese is not my mother language
I made a neon light installation to say goodbye.
But I don’t want to say goodbye.
Terence LEUNG was born in 1982 in Toronto but grew up in Hong Kong. He obtained his BA in Industrial Design from Emily Carr Institute of Art & Design in 2005, completed the printmaking, ceramics, and sculpture art specialist course by the Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre, and obtained an MA in Visual Arts from the Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University in 2017. His printmaking and ceramics works have won the creative awards in the Art Specialist Courses by the Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre. Apart from traditional media, he also recently works in community and participatory art projects.
Every blessing is a wish, and whether it can be achieved or not depends on oneself. The Chinese New Year is coming, try to examine and talk to yourself with congratulatory words in various categories.
2021
Ink on paper
20cm x 30cm x 12
Video/ Photo projection
1min 38sec
Make a kite,
Put the most beloved one’s face on the kite
Climb the highest mountain.
Fly the kite.
Neon light Installation
20 x 81cm
Someone says Cantonese is not my mother language
I made a neon light installation to say goodbye.
But I don’t want to say goodbye.
KWOK Hiu-Hin, a secondary school teacher, who is currently the subject panel for Visual Arts.
There are various cliches about educating youth. For example, hopes that students can understand themselves more and hence to set the suitable goals for their future. However, achieving goals is easier said than done.
By looking at this simple and straightforward artwork, Kwok hopes viewers can examine and reflect on themselves.
2019
Collected wool from family and friends;
Single-channel video, color, sounds
Size variable; 3’30”
Neps are separated, from a woollen, from a sweater, from the body of someone, and someone is separated and deprived of warmth. I collected the wool fabrics from my family and friends. The personal traces carried on the fabrics are dismantled and reconstructed to open a collective and connected space. Hereafter, the fabrics rub the skin, generating warmth which transmits via the body and fabrics. Fabrics start to pill and neps start to appear, carrying the warmth, interweaving with one another, inadvertently.
2018
Neps and threads from people connected with; Inkjet print on paper
A palm size; 15cm(w) x 10cm(l) each
Berlin, Copenhagen, Geneva, Korvala, Milan, Munich, Stockholm, Vasteras, Zurich
(Photos taken by Olivia Jaques & Mark Li during ACT Performance Art Festival Zurich)
‘I started missing the steadiness and a place I can go back to.’
During my half-year study exchange in Zurich, Switzerland, I was unwillingly moved between ten different apartments under pressure. At that time, the urge of finding a place to stay and the anxiousness of meeting new faces all the time were altogether comprised into the unease and unpredictability lying ahead of me. In despair, I was looking for a home.
For me, what gives meaning to a home is the people being together. During the journey, I started collecting neps and threads from the clothes of friends or strangers I met in anywhere at any time, sometimes silently, sometimes noticeably.
After that, I created a nest using these neps and threads, which once connected me to other people. At the end of the day, comfort and belongingness are always about people, connections, and relationships. The intimacy of each single action between the two people is what produces happiness in an unfamiliar city.
Video/ Photo projection
1min 38sec
Make a kite,
Put the most beloved one’s face on the kite
Climb the highest mountain.
Fly the kite.
Neon light Installation
20 x 81cm
Someone says Cantonese is not my mother language
I made a neon light installation to say goodbye.
But I don’t want to say goodbye.
MA Wing-Man (b. 1996) lives and works in Hong Kong. She received her BA from the Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University in 2019 after returning from an exchange programme at Zurich University of the Arts, Switzerland in 2018.
Ma is eager to construct spaces and create experiences through her works by awakening her audience’s senses, memories and emotions. She is also accentuating the delicate minutiae of everyday life in her work. The inspiration of some of her works came from her body perception and the deepest feeling towards the surroundings, her frustration and eagerness.
Recently, she focuses on the exploration of performance art. She begins her immediate exchanges through the conversation between body experience and material, as well as expressing her own spirit in the moment.
Her works were exhibited in selected group exhibitions including Hong Kong, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Berlin, and Zurich.
Flowers will fade, leaves will fall; time will pass, people will change. Probably, there’s no exception to this rule. I thought it would be able to froze the momentary lights and shadows on the fabrics, but it turns out nothing lasts forever in fact.
Fabrics dyed with pigments extracted from chrysanthemums
Dimension variable
Video/ Photo projection
1min 38sec
Make a kite,
Put the most beloved one’s face on the kite
Climb the highest mountain.
Fly the kite.
Neon light Installation
20 x 81cm
Someone says Cantonese is not my mother language
I made a neon light installation to say goodbye.
But I don’t want to say goodbye.
MAK Wing-Yan explores a variety of media and forms in her practice, spanning ink painting, seal engraving, ceramic, graphic design, and illustration. With a special interest in traditional Chinese art, her works often seek different ways of inheriting and reforming ink painting tradition.
In traditional art forms she discovers ways people cherish their culture through preserving the memories in objects. By studying the mundane and humble objects around herself, she seeks to recall and rediscover her own past. Often inspired by the magic of everyday objects, her practice seeks to connect with the stories behind and to bring them back to life.
We are always hiding ourselves, mentally and physically.
Tree hollow can be formed naturally or artificially.
It has a deeper meaning –
a place for baring thoughts and hiding secrets.
This artwork response to the artwork "Hello" in 2016.
2020
Dimensions variable
Mixed Media (One channel projection, Printout image, No sound)
Video/ Photo projection
1min 38sec
Make a kite,
Put the most beloved one’s face on the kite
Climb the highest mountain.
Fly the kite.
Neon light Installation
20 x 81cm
Someone says Cantonese is not my mother language
I made a neon light installation to say goodbye.
But I don’t want to say goodbye.
FONG Chi-Yung, Kelvin was born and raised in Hong Kong. After completed his BSc in Multimedia and Entertainment Technology, he completed an MVA in Studio Arts and Extended Media at the Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University.
His creations specialize in moving image, animation and graphic. His works are concerned with contemporary issues, from among he himself and people around him, to the community, by using multi-media installation.
In 2020, the whole city seems to have stopped, loneliness and alienation spread like wildfire, life has become living on an isolated island. Everyone is alone with themselves, having a seemingly infinite time but no longer know how to use it, the atmosphere is full of anxiety. "Going Back, or Not" is the work which artist attempts to use Chinese fine brush painting to portray her inner anxiety, and find a new connection in the predicament.
A box is a closed space with boundaries and limitations, and so does the sense of isolation: when placed in the box, you will feel trapped and nervous, just like measuring your own limits every day. Since the box is like a room, it provides a sense of comfort and security that makes people unconsciously accept or endure its restrictions and the deprived freedoms. However, if the box is an open cube and can be seen through, then the audiences will have to face up themselves, examine their inner anxiety and bondage, and rethink the almost forgotten freedoms in their life.
2020
Ink and colour on silk, mixed media
Video/ Photo projection
1min 38sec
Make a kite,
Put the most beloved one’s face on the kite
Climb the highest mountain.
Fly the kite.
Neon light Installation
20 x 81cm
Someone says Cantonese is not my mother language
I made a neon light installation to say goodbye.
But I don’t want to say goodbye.
LEUNG Lai-Man, Jess is a Chinese fine-brush painter based in Hong Kong. She graduated with a BA (Hons) in Visual Arts from the Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University, where she obtained the Scholastic Award and AVA Keeper of Studies Collection Award in 2015. Her work mostly focuses on the denseness/crowdedness of specific situations hinting a touch of hidden anxiety and oppression.
She has actively participated in art exhibitions such as Ink Global 2017 and Ink Asia 2015, Hi House! Art Project at Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Museum, Senses offered by the University of Hong Kong Museum Society, the Cliftons Art Prize exhibition and Asia World-Expo. Her works are collected by CNCBI and private collectors.
100 ways to say goodbye is a series of practices. The work was inspired by the Artist’s two grand parents who are over 100 years old. It is an ongoing documentation of work where true freedom and liberation is experimented by saying goodbye to the artist’s/our everyday life.
Post-it / Wall
Size Variable
The End Is the Beginning
Look into the light.
Write down your way to
Say goodbye.
Stick them on the wall.
Installation
Box: 29 x 48 x 2cm
Curtain: 160cm x 211cm
Kids are not able to go home.
We cannot go back to the past,
unless we have the keys.
Sometimes I find some old keys lying at the corners of the drawers.
I have used those keys to access spaces where I lived in the past.
I hope young people can use those keys,
go back to the spaces where they used to be happy, loved, and protected by their parents.
Installation
36.5” x 32” x 22”
My 105 years old
Grandma said:
Diapers are not for me,
They are for
old people!
Video/ Photo projection
1min 38sec
Make a kite,
Put the most beloved one’s face on the kite
Climb the highest mountain.
Fly the kite.
Neon light Installation
20 x 81cm
Someone says Cantonese is not my mother language
I made a neon light installation to say goodbye.
But I don’t want to say goodbye.
KWOK Yee-Miu, Aza is a multidisciplinary artist working conceptually with variety of media (drawings, video, animation). Daily life, memory, and humour are key elements of her work.
“Letting Go” is co-presented by the Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University and the non-profit gallery 1a space.