Visual Arts

“On the Road” is curated by the established local artist Linda Lai. It will showcase the exploration of uncharted territories by eight young artists, focusing on the processes and the experiences that constitute discovery. Most of the artworks are intermedia experiments that slowly crystallized through the collisions between the curator and the artists: these include drawing installation, performative photography, soundscape combined with cinemagraph and more. Some of the artists attempt to broaden viewing experience through interactivity and discover the multiple possibilities of ‘creative media’.

All of the eight young artists are currently studying at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong, and they are all at the starting point on the road of artmaking. But their cultural backgrounds are diverse: Allison Hung, Shon Myokyung and Diptee Thapa are from Taiwan, South Korea and India respectively, while Hanz Au, Angson Chow, Karen Hau, Harry Hon and Yan Wai Yin are born and bred in Hong Kong. Hanz is the guitarist of the critically acclaimed math rock band Prune Deer. Yan Wai Yin is a member of the PageNEXT project by Asia Art Archive. Angson Chow and Harry Hon both started taking part in the Incubator for Film & Visual Media in Asia (ifva) competition since they were in secondary school, and both have been shortlisted in the past as finalists in the Youth Category.

To turn one’s feelings and experiences into a creative work and to experiment with different kinds of materials: both processes are highly personal, but what kind of bridge do we need in order to turn it around for the enjoyment and engagement of others? This is the question that “On the Road” set out to explore, and must be addressed by the young artists through the experience of preparing for an exhibition.

Curator Dr. Linda Lai is Associate Professor at the School of Creative Media, cross-disciplinary artist and founder of local new media group Writing Machine Collective. Her video, installation and digital works like Door Games Window Frames: Near Drama (2012), Non-place/Other Space (2009), Voices Seen, Images Heard (2009) have been widely screened and exhibited in film festivals and exhibitions in Hong Kong, New York, Paris, Oberhausen, Barcelona, Taipei, Shanghai and Seoul, including 2012 Hong Kong Contemporary Awards (2013), 9th Shanghai Biennale (2012-13), Descriptions of Hearing (Taipei, 2012), One World Exposition (Hong Kong, 2011-12), 2003 Hong Kong Art Biennial. Lai is concerned with the ups and downs of young people’s creative journeys, and in the past has curated exhibitions focusing on young artists: Micro Narratives: Invented Time & Space (2006, 2011, 2012), Archiving FIngers, Hands, Faces & Anonymities (2010), and Take a ST/Roll: donut fantasies (2005, Para/Site).

From drawing and writing to video and interactive installations, “On the Road” covers a myriad of experiments with media. Using computer programming and sensor technology, Shon Myokyung boldly questions the hierarchy between professional and amateur artmaking, and explores new possibilities of appreciating art in the smartphone era. Diptee Thapa, who now lives in Spain, designed a long-term art project in which she scrutinizes anonymous Spanish villages from the perspective of an outsider. For her photography is at once a record and the instantaneous act of connecting to the people, objects and events here and now. Angson Chow uses sound as an entry point to evoke our hearing ability, and to regain control over a daily life that to him is alienating. Karen Hau’s 30 x 3 totem of daily emotions is an urge for constant and divergent change. She would have to discover the hidden treasure together with her visitors by figuring out how to show her material physically.

1a space, venue sponsor for “On the Road”, is located at the heritage site of Cattle Depot. It has been at the forefront of the local art scene for the past 16 years, having presented many important experimental exhibitions such as I Think It Rains (2013) and Kai Tak River Green Art Fest 2012 Exhibition: Is/Is Not Kai Tak River a Metaphor (2012).