Debris / Hong Kong Contemporary Art Foundation
Organised and curated by the Hong Kong Contemporary Art (HOCA) Foundation, “Debris – Hong Kong” was presented in a purposefully built setting atop Pier 4 in the city centre. Inspired by and deconstructing some of the images and tropes that have become symbols of the city itself, the exhibition reflected on the multiplicity of stimuli that people are subjected to in the urban space, being part of the artist’s broader reflection on the formation of individual and collective identity in contemporary urban societies.
It presented a new body of multidisciplinary works arranged into various rooms organised around a central corridor that displayed a video installation with slow-motion footage of the city’s day-to-day reality, including bronze and styrofoam sculptural pieces, large acid-eaten and manually produced screen prints, compositions with acid-etched metal plates, carved wooden doors, carved advertising posters, an immersive installation with a soundtrack and video footage beamed through laser-cut acrylic boards, and a video installation featuring some of the artist’s videos of wall-carvings with explosives. The outside area displayed a large installation inspired by Hong Kong’s iconic commercial neon signs.
Extending to the city itself, the show also included one bas-relief carved wall, one large-scale site-specific mural with hand-carved posters, several small-scale site-specific interventions with posters in various locations, and a site-specific intervention with hand-carved posters on one of the city’s iconic trams, which ran for the duration of the exhibition.
Debris – Hong Kong
solo exhibition
Pier 4 | Hong Kong Contemporary Art (HOCA) Foundation, Hong Kong SAR, China
21 March – 04 April 2016