#ps20w

[para-site-hk]

June 25, 2016

Today was a glorious day of exploration.  Of all things valuable in the field, one of them would be visiting artists, and witnessing the stories behind projects.  In the past days we’ve visited a number of galleries including a tiny gallery that had works by Thai artists talking about the cosmos – it was a beautiful exhibition in a petite low-key shopping building, the gallery was called Neptune. Yesterday we visited two spaces surrounded by the beating humdrum of the super-busy market area Sham Shui Po (100ft Park and Things That Can Happen).  And today we went to new media art space (with café!), Floating Projects. Next was the pristine and spacious, Spring Workshop (with an outdoor garden!) and lastly, artist-duo-run, C&G Artpartments.  Today’s discussions were prompted by writer and curator Tirdad Zoghadr.

The HK FARMer's Almanac, at Spring Workshop.

How do artist and art spaces mobilize under a luxury dominated economy? Since 2011, global sales for luxury goods reached about $250 billion, and consumers in East and Southeast Asia account for more than 50 percent of that figure (The Luxury Economy and Intellectual Property: Critical Reflections, 2015). A symptom of this rise are a shift to global brands on the rise, and transnational movements that challenge branding practices (Art Basel HK?)  I always wonder how local artists operate or mobilize under these conditions, especially if there are no developed, or engaged support or understanding between artists and ideologies of infrastructure.

At Spring Workshop, a cross-disciplinary platform with artist and curatorial residencies, exhibitions, music, film and talks.

Spring Workshop was a pleasant surprise. It’s a 5-year project with a thought-out program with residency.  Everyone had the question of why it will only exist as a 5-year project.  Christina Li, It’s director, laughed, as it was a question she encounters quite regularly. The matter is, “space is just space” and the more important ideas around it’s life-span, is it’s resonance.  How has it affected the arts community, and in so doing, how can the programming create a sense of continuity (or transfer) in concept and form?

Floating Projects which houses projects by media practitioners has a penchant for coffee, as such a permanent coffee shop is in the space (where they also include in their programming). At that time, curator-participants Tess Maunder (Brisbane/Delhi) and Alba Dawoon Lim (Seoul) had some espresso-making skills, and they took over the café.  The rest dispersed around the coffee-table-area as it became a social congregation of chats and coffee.

Clara Cheung of C&G Artpartments

Clara and Gum are two artists who founded C&G Artpartments, they are an artist-couple who do performance, research-based, durational practices.  It is one of the oldest artist run-spaces in Hong Kong (2007). They have curated more than 30 art exhibitions and more the 70 local artists that respond to social and cultural issues in Hong Kong in their space.  At the time we visited them, they are doing a painting workshop with kids, and in the gallery spaces are performance and intervention works by artists who do guerila practices in the city with issues that revolve around urban engagement, food, and the soil. The exhibition is called Soil/Play, Decongestants for West Kowloonization.

The group hung out at C&G Artpartment for a while and read some books from their book shelf filled with artist monologues  (Thank you Clara and Gum!).  In between the spaces, we also met with writer and curator Tirdad Zoghadr who talked about didacticism, and shades of activism. The talk tried to shake discussions in thinking of ways in which you can discuss within the binaries of contemporary art orthodoxy.  The push and pull of institution in particular context and anachronisms are very fluid when it comes to the question of countering, identifying or dis/identifying power relations.  To rehabilitate or undo is one thing – but for a market economy, in a specific cosmopolitan region – one has to think of ways on how to creatively work around or against it.  How can spaces exist in the realm of a private economy without a canceling-out of agendas? The participants had a lot of questions during workshop discussions and gallery visits. At this point, one realizes that even without answers, the practice of questioning is always a good shared exercise.

This evening while waiting for our bus, we went to have snacks and try out some Hong Kong street food - fish balls, tofu and squid tentacles!

- Lian Ladia

[para-site-hk]

June 24, 2016

Onion Peterman (exhibited at 100ft Park, Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong)

Today I focus on things that happen in the present. I hear wall clock ticks as each second passes. The vibrating hum of the neighbor's airconditioner comes through my window. A tinkering shaking sound calls out from the busy street. My kettle bubbles for the hot water. To be honest, only in rare occasions do I find myself focused on the “now.” On the train, I see people’s faces thinking about the next destination.  In school, youre conditioned to think of the past, and reflect on the future.  Quite explicitly, you are trained to seek a sense of order. You follow orders within an indoctrinated framework  (also known as academia).  You aim for acceptance, rather than fostering an impulse to challenge well-worn models.  Or Rather than fostering your impulse to respond what's right in front of you. 

Joanna Mytkowska took the workshop participants for a walk.  For the first time, conditions of people working and living outside of the 22nd floor, surrounding the geography of the buidling is talked about.  Carol Yinghua Lu presents ways and perspective of thinking and viewing the choreography of bodies around the exhibition.  Apart from space, another aspect of perspective is the power structure of working with other people, the names curator/installer/artist already forges a separation that is interesting to break.

In the afternoon we went to Sham Shui Po and as soon as we get off the bus - instead of thinking of the next destination, a buzzling array of sound, scent and texture consumes you all of a sudden. We walk past shanties of stores with disco lights, plastic supplies, phones of all kinds and types, workers uniforms, stinky tofu, roasted chestnuts, the scent of mint and tangerine oozing out of a humidifier store, a button and buckle store, a man selling squid tentacles….in the moment, a workshop participant pauses to buy a strip of egg waffles.  We walk and talk, under the sun, in the shade of hanging clothes from 10-story old buildings. A swarm of young guys wearing kurta's pass by running, in a festive way, in my back.. watch out for a truck is making its way through the street!  Things happen!  I always think about the Hong Kong artist, what does it mean for her/him to work under these conditions? First we enter a staircase, whose stairwell is being renovated with bamboos mounted as a support structure.  

Onion Peterman (exhibited at 100ft Park, Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong)

The door opens and its a tiny gallery called 100ft park welcomes us. A print show called "Everything Ok", greets the group with drawings of chance encounters in the city. Artist books are in a table together with the guest sign-up. A few minutes after introductions and casual conversations, we head out again. Sham Shui Po has so much business and interaction going on. The scent of the gutter and money is around, combined with cheap tasty fried or fresh food that is just out on the street.. in a tv and electric repair shop, I see a century old phonograph.

Ocean Leung, A response to an intervention, Things That Can Happen, Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong

Our next destination is a space founded by Hong Kong artist Lee Kit and co-founder Chantal Wong.  This blog entry is actually inspired by Lee Kit's presentation.  Matter-of-factly, he created narrative association's on how things came to be, how he confronts things, and the sense of openness to re-evaluate or distorts the present, and move-on.  He is quite open to the idea that there are "Things that can happen" (The name of the space). May it be a revolution, or a sense of frustration, support, or fear, the luxury economy or the exchange economy amongst artists and supporters, gentrification or the loose way on how immigration or refuge is recognized.  I think part of his artistic practice is being present in the moment, in touch with daily life and being open or shut down.  

Ocean Leung, A response to an intervention, Things That Can Happen, Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong

Today was a moment of recalibration.  I should focus more on my breath. As the tipping sound of my keyboard taps away, I hear the ticking sound of the left hand clock on the wall again. There's something brewing downstairs, I can hear some activity and voices.  I should direct myself more on the beating sound of the present. Being optimistic or pessimistic does not matter, its more about a sense of confrontation, involvement and honesty – to foster the impulse to see things creatively/instinctly.

Over dinner,  we had a playful visitor who creeped up under the table while we were eating!

- Lian Ladia

[para-site-hk]

January 20, 2016

for appetizer: fragrant almond milk and medicinal pig’s lung, tendered, cleaned and bleached until creamy white.

Reflecting on our sessions for the day, we discussed the idea of “positioning” in several aspects.  Lucas Ospina questioned pedagogy, and shared his decision to favor literature over theory.  Embedded in the voice of the text is the distinction between the exploratory or the privileged voice.  There is a difference between affirmation/privilege, and exploration/doubt. Like most cases, questions are better than answers.  Ospina’s work as an artist plays between the fictional and the historical narrative. His projects with controversial artist Pedro Manrique Figueroa, the alleged forerunner of collage in Colombia in the 60’s and 70’s, challenges notions of contemporary speculation, and expectation.

A Paper Tiger, 2007, Film, Dir. Luis Ospina

On the second workshop, Curator Roger Buergel is both interested and disinterested in the historical position of museology. The group discussed and compared the carcass of the empire by looking at the floor plan of the British Museum.  Ideas and questions of multiplicity and trajectories of historical narratives arose.  Perhaps at this point, the storage space in the museum is the most important space that needs to be explored. It functions in a transitory moment, in between spaces, where there is no entrenched museological categories. Upon my personal introspection, I’m reminded that Karl Marx wrote some of his crucial texts in the libraries of the British Museum. Perhaps the site was a potent study for atrocity and conquest, so much so that he kept returning, writing and eventually producing, Das Kapital. Buergel also mapped out transatlantic and transpacific trades in the colonial era. Inputs from the group mentioned how trade, or how commerce is essentially a product of survival.  These trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific routes are crucial in how we understand commodity fetishism, upon a time where desire can be worn, and bought and traded – this was the birth of material worth, and the idea of the art object which was largely a European project.  With the rise of new museums and new historians, how can specificity or multiplicity not be lost with museology?  And is it even possible?

Anthony Yung from the Asia Art Archive, provided an open and generous view into the development of the archive, what is available, what they projected to do, how crucial things became (China 1980’s contemporary project), and how one positions historical importance.  For example, he delved into the idea that Chinese art, as a singular concept is not an interesting approach. Rather, he proposes to the admission of a lot of conflicting, regional layers of China as a starting point. Once that is set, one will realize that looking into the specificity of a particular region is actually a more interesting research topic.  

One example he mentioned was the trajectory of modernism in Shanghai in the 1920’s. Artists like Zhang Wei, or Zhang Peili who have western modernist counterparts are prospects for interesting case studies.  In the case of Zhang Peili (who was possibly influenced by Edward Hopper), it is more important to position the lens of comparison, not as how they imitate Western Art, but as why would they choose a certain style instead of another.  What kind of similar sensibility did Peili find in Hopper, and why? These are questions that are more interesting to talk about.

(Left: Zhang Peilie, Right: Edward Hopper)

After the workshops, the group hopped on the bus to go to Asia Art Archive, met with the curators, directors and had a glimpse of their interesting projects and mission positioned as a catalyst for new ideas that enrich our understanding of the world through the collection, creation and sharing of knowledge around recent art in Asia. Interesting projects, exchanges in Sri Lanka and Myanmar were talked about, as well as projects relating to art historical text available in a multiplicity of South Asian languages and how this opens it up to broader influences.  At the end of the night, a jam-packed talk by artist Walid Raad. He discussed the many ways which he positions himself in dealing with the complexities of history, land, labor and museology. Once again, fiction/fantasy becomes an operative concept that inhabits psychic trauma.

Today we had Chiuchow cuisine, originated from the east Guangdong province.  There was emphasis in poaching, braising and steaming with the preparation of the food. I looked into the influence and reach of the cuisine and found out that Chiuchow diaspora travelled south to Hong Kong, Taiwan, Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, Singapore, Thailand), and in other continents: Europe (France) and the US (California).  Food travels to create trans-border connections and influences, like the old world and new world galleon trade routes of silver, porcelain, spice, silk, lapis lazuli – connections are more porous when eaten, than collected, bought or sold. Complexities of histories, dialogue and influences really depends on how you position yourself.  How do you choose to tell stories and make connections curatorially?  Is it through necessary descriptive moments of national history, and organized logic? Or narrative, instinctive, speculations and explorations? Can you combine both?

for dessert: a bowl of steamed taro and pumpkin mashed into a paste sweetened with water chestnut served with ginko nuts. Beside it are steamed dumplings with the paste of red bean and lotus seed.

- Lian Ladia

[para-site-hk]

June 18, 2016

Red dish in center: Braised Spareribs in Chinese Hawthorn Sauce

Dinner was presented with two slippery chopsticks, one for serving, and one for eating.  My eye was on the prize: Braised Spareribs in Chinese Hawthorne Sauce, soft and tender pork sliding in its bone, surrounded in the flavor of sweetness dampened by the brew of its palatable sauce with a salty undertone.

What happened prior this concluding session? A blur of a crowded swarm of bodies at a double decked tram, voices crackling of peoples projects we just viewed, humid weather in the night.

I look at the chopstick for serving and remember presentations we ended with some of the workshop participants: a diverse and multi-focal perspective on articulating nation, a female viewpoint of a multi-layered notion of China, an alternative to a panoptic view of exhibition-making and spatial territory, migration, recolonialization, decolonialisation, transcience, anxiety, occupation, and survivalism.

I contemplate on the other chopstick: for eating, and remember an exhibition walkthrough with curators at the Para Site exhibition Space, “That Has Been and May Be Again” – the local HK curators selected through a program by Para Site, Leo Li Chen and Wu Mo –walked the group through each work, and each step, in a steady flow of description and discussion. The title of the exhibition, was derived from an excerpt in a 1920’s short story by Yu Dafu called, “Sinking.” I was able to digest a localized perspective of a recurring artist desire of an autonomous life from materialism.  Through the exhibition and recurring patterns of flight from the anxiety of waiting – I understood a central feeling which has repeating patterns of moments of contempt within China, in the 1920’s (with Japan), 1990’s (with the failed student revolt), and currently (with the occupation movements). Works in the exhibition mostly focused work and work production that gears towards the underground, self-organization, nostalgia and flight.

Since the food was served I had my eye on Braised Spareribs in Chinese Hawthorne Sauce.  Reminding me of my specific appetite of why I went to Hong Kong: with the conference of Para Site in mind – asking permissions from colleagues and advisors from graduate school to make it a possibility. The 20th anniversary conference which includes a workshop for emerging professionals, and the 3-day conference– with discussions on how the landscape of Hong Kong and the surrounding art world has changed in the last 20 years.  It sounds meaty, fully-formed, full flavored. What are the pros and cons of a localized/ geopolitical contextual narrative. How will I consume it, how will I digest it?  I used to just watch the conference in its past years livestreamed whether I was in Manila or Amsterdam. What taste will it leave in my mouth? What will I have for dinner next, and how will that relate to the rest of my day? Let’s see in the next days to come.

- Lian Ladia