The Hong Kong House at the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale 2024, presented by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD) and organised by the Art Promotion Office (APO) in collaboration with the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale Executive Committee, will be staged in Tsunan, Niigata Prefecture, Japan, from tomorrow (July 13) until November 10. Hong Kong artists Matthew Tsang and Cordelia Tam will connect urban life in Hong Kong with nature in Echigo-Tsumari through their artwork "Two Places Under the Same Sky".
People in Hong Kong, surrounded by skyscrapers, often work around the clock. Echigo-Tsumari is a region with great mountain ranges, and its famous local rice is the product of the farmers' respect for and adaptation to seasonal changes and the natural environment. Inspired by these, artists Tsang and Tam shredded waste paper from Hong Kong and Tsunan to make handmade paper and transformed it into a natural shanshui (mountain and water) landscape which provides a metaphorical cleansing of urban trivialities. The exhibition also makes use of projections and lighting effects to create an animated sky scene. With the passing hours projected on a wall, the work mirrors the rapid pace of urban life. Handmade soil plates symbolise the enduring bond between farmers and the four seasons. While a mechanical device rotates farm tools on the soil plates to the speed of the hand of a clock, which depicts city dwellers pacing their lives to the ticking of a mechanical clock, the farmers follow the rhythms of nature, which reveals an interesting perception of time between the two places. Through the work, the artists pay tribute to the local way of living in harmony with nature and invites the audience to reflect on their way of living. Despite the differences between the two places, they are under the same sky, and time and nature still flow in parallel.
In addition to the display of the work, papermaking workshops will be held during the exhibition period to forge a bridge of communication and express the friendship and care between Hong Kong and Tsunan through the art of handmade paper and artistic creations.
In addition, the activity collaborator, Make A Difference Institute (MaD), will organise a community-based project "Minna no Tsukemono", with the theme of food culture, to look into the stories behind food preservation in Tsunan and Hong Kong, and will invite participants to taste tsukemono (preserved vegetables) from home and from afar. The Hong Kong House project has also invited the School of Creative Media at City University of Hong Kong to be the internship programme collaborator, offering opportunities for students from the School to gain practical experience and interact with the artists and collaborators involved in the Hong Kong House project.
The Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale, to be held once every three years, is one of the largest international outdoor art festivals in the world. With the support of the Tsunan Town Government and in collaboration with the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale Executive Committee and the NPO Echigo-Tsumari Satoyama Collaborative Organization, the APO of the LCSD launched the Hong Kong House in Tsunan, Niigata Prefecture, Japan, in 2018. This year's participating artists from Hong Kong, Matthew Tsang and Cordelia Tam, were selected through an open call for proposals by the joint adjudication panel of Hong Kong and Japan in 2023.
For details of the exhibition, please visit the APO's website at www.apo.hk/en/web/apo/there_hkh2024_two_places_under_same_sky.html, the Facebook pages of Hong Kong House at www.facebook.com/apo.hkhouse , Instagram at www.instagram.com/hongkonghouse , or call 2512 3018/ 2512 3019/ 2512 3020.
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