Visual Arts

In the exhibition of ‘Reflection!’, Leandro Erlich from Argentina and Meta4 Design Forum and Kingsley Ng from Hong Kong constructed a point of convergence for reality and fabricated imagery through installations, sound and vision.

Leandro Erlich created three-dimensional visual illusions that invited the viewer’s interaction. Specially tailored to Oi!, his extraordinary Bâtiment incorporated a huge mirror set out to alter reality and defy common sense and our perceptions of space. The participation of the audience and their creativity in interacting with the mirror formed the essence of this work of art that challenged our understanding of our own reality.

Inspired by the historical buildings that house Oi! and the modern high-rises that surround them, the architects of Meta4 Design Forum teamed up with documentary photographer Tse Pak-chai to rethink the relationship between the old buildings of the city that are gradually disappearing and the new ones that are taking their place. The installation assimilated a curtain wall, the symbol of urban redevelopment, and projected on to it images of old buildings that had been demolished in order to stimulate the audience’s memories of the city and their response to its modern incarnation.

Reflected the street scenes outside the arched windows of Oi!, Kingsley Ng’s light and sound installation gently recounted stories of the past and present. As the original home of the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club, 12 Oil Street had always been associated with leisure, while North Point also offered plenty of entertainment in the old days. In the exploration of the relationship between ‘recreation’ and ‘re-creation’, Ng invited the audience to find their way through a series of scenes, composed of images, sounds, scents, taste and narratives that were part real, part imaginary, and to travel through the urban landscapes of the Oil Street of yesterday and today.