What does it mean to build an artistic practice in the current historical time? What does it look like? These questions have been floating in my mind for a while. More specifically since I decided to take a detour from the field of design to enter a full- time artistic practice — at the moment carried out in the context of my studies.
Going through the meanders of the online exhibition Peer to Peer: UK/HK 2022, I was fascinated by the diversity of the works — I am not sure yet which verb to use to describe the experience of attending an online exhibition. In this case it really felt like wandering in the unknown while being dragged on by an insatiable curiosity. Peer to Peer: UK/HK 2022 as a platform encourages experimental approaches and flowing of ideas, rather than seeking exhaustive, definite — easily commodifiable — artworks.
As I could understand it, the vision of the festival is that of facilitating a virtual place for geographically distant artists to come together and create new works nourished by these encounters.
Allowing space for collaboration is a courageous act of freedom. It means to favour criticism and progressive ideas and it leaves the initiator with limited control over the result. It requires being open(-minded) to the potential of unexpected developments, and well-equipped to give such developments the necessary support. It takes the ability to give up on cleanliness and homogeneity in pursuance of ambiguous, hesitant, never imposing yet thoughtful outcomes. A collaboration grows horizontally and distributes the power between the agents who take part in it in a continuous process of (re)negotiation. A collaboration shows us the possibility of living together, in respectful and caring co-existence.
As an individual, allowing space for collaboration also means to open up to being vulnerable. It means to put your ideas in the hands of others, and your feet in their shoes. It means sharing knowledge. This is the most powerful counter-narrative to an economic system that teaches us to accumulate and never give away. It seemed to me that in many cases in this exhibition the process of collaboration almost naturally guided the artists to share their process together with the artistic output. One example is the Miro board from the contribution Three Places. In A Moment of 90 Seconds. with the comments of the artists — Edwin Chuk Yin Man, Emma Lambert, Terry Ng — to their respective researches. As if inspired by the act of feeding each other’s minds they felt the urge to involve the audience in their stream of thoughts.
Maybe this is what an innovative artistic practice can look like: In progress, open, layered yet inviting for the viewers to get lost in its ripples and wrinkles. Collaboration as a route; gentle, slower — dealing with others takes care and time — and fluidly shaped artistic forms as an outcome.
Samuel Beckett never stopped his translations, writing in his foreign French to translate back to his native English. His urge to be apart form his mother tongue was a choice, a creative tool used to construct his surreal dramas or tragicomedy’s. Works by Beckett, and other writers like him, highlight the myriad possibilities of translation, the benefits of manipulating they way we communicate, searching for the perfect cadence to inform and inspire. But what are the limits to translation? What are the problems of foregoing your mother tongue to communicate in a way that is secondary?
Omid Asadi’s Scuffle Tussle Struggle (2022), made as part of the Peer to Peer: UK/HK exchange programme, begins to unpack these very limitations. As the title suggests, the video performance of Asadi, filmed by Jules Lister, starts by showing the artist grappling with an indistinct object, blurred by bright blocks of light which morph as the artist shapes and moulds and prises.
As the artists hands grip and shape the material in front of him, the bright blocks of light form into characters of their own, English, Persian, Cantonese. They whirl and billow in a kaleidoscopic stream, at times being legible to read, at others, forming a cosmetic skin which coats the performance in a psychedelic plane.
The artist himself then becomes visible, rising behind the moulding block, coating himself in the swirl of language as he still scuffles, tussles, and struggles – hands always moving, trying to both mould and break apart the matter that sits before him.
English is the shared language of the two artists in this collaboration, (Karen Yu being the collaborator) Persian being the mother tongue of Asadi, and Cantonese belonging to Yu. In Asadi’s performance, what both unites and separates them is merged into a frantic dance of symbols. These layered languages highlight the problematic nature of translation, the difficulty of breaking down and reforming structure, of making visible the intended meaning.
The object Asadi moulds reminds me of the rosetta stone, the two thousand year old decree inscribed into rock, translated into three languages. As Asadi moulds this semi-malleable clay, you begin to understand that translation isn’t so straightforward. It has twists and turns, and needs to be broken apart and reformed; Asadi shows a struggle, one of restructuring your mother tongue for foreign verse.
Asadi’s plight continues until the object is fully deconstructed. What was once a towering block of material that concealed the artist is now broken into smaller fragments. Asadi is the one bathed in the triology of languages, yet still his hands desperately try to shape and pull apart. You are left wondering if his labour will ever end, or if what he has set out to do a Sisyphean task, destined to continue forever?
As the bright light of the language fades, we are left looking at a deep blue silhouette, head bowed, exhausted, silent. The silhouette sinks and the video fades to black, and we are left contemplating the struggle we have just seen.
To speak in a foreign tongue, I think, takes more than I have ever known.
Short story ‘Life in Black and White’, on Superimposition (UK-HK), by artists Hin Nam Fong, Melanie King, Samson Pak Hang Wong (Power of Place).
She twists in her seat, a white gaming chair that probably meets standard regulations for home working conditions if you ignore its slightly wobbly left armrest. Lids drop slowly over dry, tired eyes, while the beaming sun pierces its way through the fingerprint-covered window. Summer wasn’t meant for this. She listens to the familiar chime of her loaned Dell laptop coming to life. Even that sounds strained, much like her cramped fingers and stiffening neck. Only in her twenties, healthy and spritely in the ‘Before Times’, her body shouldn’t feel like this, but long days hunched over a laptop has taken its toll, and she wonders, as she always does, when this will all be over.
The screen comes to life with its scattered, disorganised folders and company-specific applications, and she glides her finger lazily over the trackpad until her cursor hovers over her email. She yawns, watching the same messages from the same accounts filter into her inbox: Lindsay from HR, Josh from Marketing—a pause. She doesn’t recognise this address.
NEVER OPEN AN EMAIL FROM AN UNKNOWN ADDRESS! She recalls Heather from IT’s explicit warning. A tightly locked database, spam accounts rarely make their way through the firewall, but she has seen them on occasion. She drags them simply to the email’s ‘trash’ folder, then goes on with her day the same way she always does. Everything is the same lately. Same, same, same…
A mixture of curiosity, lack of care and, just maybe, a small portion of rebellion, of the desire to do something out of the ordinary no matter how minute, causes her to tap on the unknown email, its subject simple: Today.
We don’t know each other, but I hope this email finds you well. Please see my image below, and tell me…is it this quiet there? Regards.
Compelled by the email’s ominous body, she blinks from the text to the picture below, its bright colours dulled by immediate emptiness. She doesn’t know the place, but she can tell it is not the UK. She stares at the scene for a while, able to picture its usual vibrancy. She imagines droves of pedestrians lining the streets, cool drinks and idle chatter. Colourful conversation, happiness, joy. When she looks again, though, what she sees is the reality: a near-empty street, silenced by the pandemic unfolding around her. Around the whole world.
She is stunned to silence, to sadness, to emptiness. Then, to realisation, to a sense of unity. She stands, iPhone poised and camera ready, then takes a picture of the first thing to catch her eye: a bright red post box across the street, chipped and graffitied but still standing tall. The reflection in the window imposes her photo, but she doesn’t suppose that matters.
Ignoring the voice in her head that sounds suspiciously like Heather from IT’s, she types her response while her photo uploads:
Thank you for your photo. Here’s mine:
Then:
As you can see, everything’s black and white here now, too.
Push your shoulder up against language and it will push back against you.
If a body has the language of gesture, then language, too, gestures to us from a body.
This body is neither wholly naive. Nor is it wholly ungodly.
Scuffle, tussle, struggle with language, and it will gesture back saying “My body, too, bears the scars. We have accrued through centuries.”
Clay is the first, known, writing medium. Clay is the first material witness to oral communication, an attempt to render permanent our soluble articulations.
The earliest clay writing tablets hail from Mesopotamia, as early as 2900 BCE.
A cuneiform script is pressed into their surface with a reed.
Clay and its absence are the first, known, writing medium.
The absence of clay is: impressions, indentations, wedges, protrusions, reliefs, light, shadow.
A script, though not itself a language, is perhaps a gesture towards language.
Notice how languages moves with and against you. Feel it in the curl of your tongue and your lips puckered in unfamiliar ways.
Caress language. Grasp, gently, its contours. Press your fingers onto its slick surface, find the wet crevice. Dig your hands into its flesh.
From this soft place, pull and push it into another shape. To repair language is to at once suture it and tear it down.
This is not easy.
Language can cede under pressure, crumble in our hands.
Forgive language for its failure.
Translation cries “Let me help you.” Then trips and mumbles over its own words, drops and crushes all that is left.
Translation presses that misshapen and lovely thing into your hands and says “Look at this. Look at this thing I wish to share with you.”
You admit that this lovely thing will have to be enough.
The Cyrus Cylinder (539–538 BCE) is an Ancient Mesopotamian clay cylinder from the First Persian Empire. Its surface, etched with Akkadian cuneiform script, sets forth the decree of Cyrus the Great, the new king of Babylon, allowing for the preservation of local languages, faiths, and traditions, after the Persian conquest of the city.
It is considered by some to be the first declaration of Human Rights.
If you find this anachronistic, language might agree with you.
If you acknowledge this is a nice gesture, language might agree with you.
Mesopotamian unfired clay tablets could be soaked in water and recycled into new, clean tablets ready for reuse.
A poem responding to the letter exchange of Re: Home by artists: Johannes Pretorius, Lucy Saggers, Iris Shum (Power of Place).
Put down my mug the cold table smell of coffee filled the room while you come, gently give me that fondle hug in a way that, anybody else knows how, I could never imagine whom
Ever cold hands get warmed up coffee steam little pecks my cheeks makes me grin, while we look through the kitchen window to see the rain fall over our neighbor canopy
It’s 2019 and our first winter
British lands I wouldn’t know if I could call this place home the emptiness your strong arms without the presence of your kind eyes and outrageous laugh
Christmas is coming we wished together to see the lights walk around the market see it snowing although you look fine, I find myself hiding everytime I hear you cry through the same kitchen window and probably asking yourself “why?”
Everyone thinks everything is going well while liking all those cute pictures of us, old buildings, seagulls and ducks nobody knew the truth (I never posted on Instagram) of how many times we went down to hell filled by early morning pain with that bitter taste of loneliness the thought of never seeing our family again
How many times we asked ourselves if we made the right choice leaving behind our loved ones no idea if, one night, we’d get that phone call hear that tearful voice, hiccups and cries dreadful words nobody wishes to hear spark of despair lighting up in our hearts stalking our dreams filling it with fear
Moving places all my life here to there home for me was always simply a house some walls, windows and hallways somewhere to share family dinner, birthday parties a chair with my favourite teddy bear drawing and painting over and over dreams I never imagined I could one day attain
That’s why, for you, it’s much worse to move away two decades in a single place deep-seating your roots day after day, surrounded by cousins, your old granny and a mom love and pamper makes you think any house with all of them was a home
Here we are December 2022 another year’s gone we fight against our odds waiting for the best to come a question one that nobody can really reply “What it is home?” would that be the house we live or the house we always dreamed of? maybe the place we go by train Saturday afternoon holding hands and a cup of coffee?
I don’t know the right answer this puzzling question one thing I know, for sure home isn’t a place made of wooden door frames and bricks white windows and riches a piece of land or an estate
home is where your smile opens my day, the sound of your breath blows my curls away from my face your calloused and warm hands rests on my cheeks delicate home definitely is where we are side by side walking, until one day we meet our fate.
Creative writing in response to Superimposition (UK-HK), by artists Hin Nam Fong, Melanie King, Samson Pak Hang Wong (Power of Place).
As an insignificant and isolated face in one of hundreds of windows that look out through weathered glass, there is a dragging feeling that traps her inside the reverberations of mistakes and missed opportunities. She exists in a concrete prison of monotony and despair, consumed by the mounting mould of what could have been, and what should never have been.
She regrets what she has built but the foundations have fused into her soul. And so she attempts to paint yet another watery coat of lurid emulsion over the tainted, cracked and flaking layers of wallpaper. As she stands on the rubble, she believes she is stuck in a predetermined cycle destined to repeat the past. The emulsion dribbles down the walls onto the floor, congealing with the soil in-between her bare-footed toes.
The dust of repetitive construction and destruction sluggishly suffocates her lungs until there is no air left. It grips at her throat repressing her voice. It clouds over her face the with toxic artificial particles of a previous and a past that persistently sting her eyes. If only she could just wipe it all away and start again. Has she unfortunately absorbed what someone carelessly left behind, or has her reckless life building created a thick film of pollution that refuses to clear?
Sporadically she finds fleeting freedom in the liminal sky; an escape from the lonely loop, only to come crashing back down into a bleak reality; only one of many possible perceptions,surely, she doubts? And the gap that existed between despair and hope collapses in again.
There is no time, yet unceasing time is all there seems to be. Her exchange with another has swallowed her spirit until she no longer recognises the grime-stained reflection of her hollow facade in the window. She has no identity. She has suppressed her emotions and has no sense of where she belongs in a story she created for herself. She is merely an ill-fitting transparent mannequin of many personalities she has unsuccessfully occupied.
She finds herself slumped awkwardly on a skeletal chair, as an insensitive shard of sunlight slaps the side of her face. And in a limbo state that echoes with the sound of distant promises and simulated laughter, distracting conversations that have fickly travelled to others burn with blatantly bogus authenticity.
In this silent shock of self-awareness, a shattered strength, that had struggled to support the crumbling walls of her mind, starts to climb wearily up the rusted rung scaffolding of her spine.
As a wispy welcome cloud softens the harsh light that’s been blinding her, it only reveals the scattered stains of traitorous shadows she’d cast upon herself. She cathartically acknowledges her habitual darkness before transitorily choosing to recognise and embrace the embryonic elucidation on the other side of her window.
We received a very high standard of creative and critical writing submissions for Student Writing Competition: New Voices Peer to Peer: UK/HK 2022 – making our judging responsibilities challenging and thrilling! We judged anonymously, in the first instance, before noting entries were from regions across the UK and Europe, and from a wide range of disciplines, including Photography, Creative Writing, History of Art and Music. Here are the winners announced by the judges Laura Robertson (creative writing) and Mariama Attah (critical writing).
The winners in creative writing are:
Mai Hem, BA Photography / Photojournalism & Documentary Photography, The University Of Bolton, for ‘Break The Window‘, which took a highly impactful and apt interpretation of the double-exposure photography of Superimposition (UK-HK), by artists Hin Nam Fong, Melanie King, Samson Pak Hang Wong (Power of Place). We thought Mai Hem’s moving short story spoke to the deeply personal politics of poverty in the UK right now; what the experience of having to paint over cracks and mold does to one’s health, confidence, and self-esteem.
Sarita Coronato, UAL Level 3 Art & Design Diploma, The City of Liverpool College, for ‘Fwd: Home‘, a poem responding to the letter exchange of Re: Home by artists: Johannes Pretorius, Lucy Saggers, Iris Shum (Power of Place). Coronato’s heart-rending migrant story attempts to communicate what ‘home’ means, and the uncertainty, fear and grief in leaving everything behind.
Ellie Duffy, BA English and Creative Writing, The University of Bolton, for short story ‘Life in Black and White‘, on Superimposition (UK-HK), by artists Hin Nam Fong, Melanie King, Samson Pak Hang Wong (Power of Place). Duffy has crafted a delightful, surprising drama that delivers on form, whilst ruminating about the extraordinary ways in which our lives had to change around the pandemic. There is a strong sense of life stripped bare, and art perhaps being one way to hope, reconnect and live again.
Beatrice Cera and Joseph Glover both approached this writing commission with a considered and considerate take on Peer to Peer UK/ HK. Their writing styles are engaging and work well in prompting a set of questions and ideas for readers to pursue.
Beatrice’s text introduces the importance of collaboration and how this, as an artistic practice, can enable chaotic, unexpected, positive connections and outcomes that otherwise wouldn’t have occurred. Joseph’s use of metaphor with a focus on creative uses of shared and distinct languages is an insightful take demonstrating a clear grasp of the project and its ambitions.
Both texts were impressive and captured the spirit of Peer to Peer UK/ HK.
I have always felt Other in Hong Kong, and being Other was a given in the UK. I came to the UK for the first time 3 years ago to study Fine Art and Film at Lancaster University. In the first-year painting project, I made a painting of a HK school girl in a mask, not because of COVID. She wears a yellow ribbon. My dad loved this painting for its symbolism, I thought it was super corny and lame, an idea too obvious, too kitsch, so I never thought about making any politically-engaged art about Hong Kong ever again. I never wanted to represent HK just because it’s where I’m from. I never felt wholly rooted there, my self-expression felt suppressed, my mother-tongue was always slightly foreign. I came to the UK to be Other proudly, on my own terms, express myself in the language I’ve grown to know best. But it was hard to find my own terms, my own voice. In the first week, HK students were given two extra mentors, also from HK. It may very well be a comforting welcome to some, but to me it felt like being gently put into another box before I even got out of the first one.
Fast forward to graduation, I am now left to freely explore on my own. It’s terrifying, but it feels good (sometimes). On Instagram one day, I came across the blue regular Arial font on a white background which says “Peer to Peer: UK / HK” (figure 1). The simplicity of the graphic gave a sense of ambiguity and space for interpretation and imagination to make our own meaning of this relationship, this connection. No fancy digital-ness or visual cues to imply certain trends or zeitgeist, just a blank slate, a white canvas. Simply seeing the letters “UK / HK”, makes visible a space in between, giving me a sense of belonging. I belong in this inbetweenness. I feel valued and worthy of speaking in this space. And so my voice begins here.
Figure 1: Peer to Peer: UK / HK graphic.
Yes, We’ve Dated. It’s complicated.
I feel I have to acknowledge the colonial past of this relationship. It’d be rude to ignore the complexity of which this relationship was formed in the first place. We were together for 156 years. We broke up 25 years ago. Hong Kong still, very much so, lives in the inbetweenness of the postcolonial condition. With the Queen’s death, HK people mourn for her under threatening eyes. It’s a weird time to restart this relationship, under the weird circumstance of art. I struggle to grapple with the perplexity of it all, yet I know it is excitement I feel for this resurgence, this new-born child, this resurrection. A chance to transform trauma through introspection into self-discovery. This isn’t a much-addressed theme throughout the programme, maybe it’s too risky or just awkward, but bits of postcolonialist ideas are embedded as always, like in translation, mother-tongues, our relationship with China, etc. After this little acknowledgment as food for thought, let’s dive into the programme.
Launch
Panellists waving goodbye after the launch.
Attending the launch of Peer to Peer: UK / HK, I was ready for a deep dive into this relationship, addressing the societal implications of it all, what this relationship means. I was met with courteous introductions and passing-ons of speeches from one director/curator to another and all. I ruminated on everyone’s Zoom names, some with their full Chinese names in pinyin, some including their English names, some with only their first names, and the “normality” of English’s first and last name basis. I thought of my own name. 譚戈兒. Tam Kwo Yi Chloe. Kwo Yi Chloe Tam. Chloe Kwo Yi Tam. Chloe Tam. TANGEER, what my website and Instagram is named after. Please excuse me while I go on a slight tangent about my name.
A NAME
I found TANGEER on a plane ticket (figure 2) to Lhasa, Tibet, on a trip with my mum and gong gong (grandpa). I’ve never seen my name put together like that. It’s pronounced Tán Gē Ér, in mandarin pinyin. TANGEER bears this inbetweenness of looking like an English word (Tangier?), and being Mandarin pinyin. The pinyin feels like a secret, hidden in the façade of a misspelled English word. I love the idea that my name bears this intrinsic error for interpretation.
I started wondering why my first name was spelled Kwo Yi anyways. That’s not what it sounds like in Cantonese, which is [gwo1] [yi4]. Even though Kwo Yi is what’s on all my identification documents, it doesn’t represent what I recognise as my name. Without the intonations or the image-like structure of the characters, it bears no significance other than being an English mispronunciation of my Chinese name. But I know it’s spelt this way because HKers’ names for official documents were made during colonial times to be more easily pronounced for English people. It mimics the Cantonese pronunciation but is made “more English”. This is the difference between pinyin names of people from China and Hong Kong. Our names quite literally represent this inbetween of UK / HK.
So back to the Zoom launch meeting, it was fascinating how everyone chooses to represent their names. Some maybe a conscious decision with conceptual reasoning, some merely a choice out of a million they stuck with. I find it difficult to remember their English translation of pinyin names because it exists in a language which is formed between Cantonese and English. Or maybe it’s because of the westernised prejudice I’ve developed to be more inclined to remembering English names. Anyway, after this launch session, I’m left curious and hungry for enlightenment.
Figure 2: Plane ticket to Lhasa with my name in Mandarin pinyin.
Power of Place
I started exploring the artworks made for Power of Place, brought together by Open Eye Gallery, WMA and Redeye, gathering the works of 13 artists from both UK and HK. I didn’t quite know what to expect or how large scale this project was. I hopped onto the website, trying to navigate my way through unfamiliar but accessibly laid out territory.
Chance and Control – Superimposition (UK-HK)
Starting with the Superimposition (UK-HK) artworks, I tapped through the superimposed images of Hin Nam Fong 方顯楠, Melanie King, and Samson Pak Hang Wong 黃百亨. Seeing the familiar details of HK and UK, I admired the beauty of chance made possible – or simply made existing – by the power of association in our minds. I wondered if the artists communicated previously to make these images DO something. It’s weird, the way we yearn for control and the belief that what we plan is usually better than what we simply allow to happen (which funnily my wording of “allow” still implies control).
But I was informed by the curator in the Artist, Power and Place session that no, they only knew that they would be photographing their immediate surroundings, using the parameters of “historical, cultural, temporal, and spatial connection” between the two places and focusing on “the similarity of objects and spaces from these two areas, including street lights, self-portraits, buildings, construction sites, post boxes and windows”. And in the short period of time they had, they managed to create triple exposures across two continents. Their photogrammetry experiment was an interesting amalgamation of the iconic colonial emblem of the postbox, using a 3D version of double exposure to mix the physical being and colours. It nicely signifies a beginning of this synthesis and the potential that lies ahead.
From “Double exposure: HK to HK”.
Good old chance and pattern recognition.
Liminality –A photo conversation on ‘Liminality and the Power of Place’
Speaking of potential, Joseph Leung Mong Sum 梁望琛 and Anna Sellen had really in-depth conversations on their shared interest of liminality on several occasions (that are available to watch here and here), which totally broadened my idea of liminal spaces beyond the empty fluorescent hallways on Fandom. Joseph made a great point that liminality creates a space where we can re-negotiate our roles, where we have freedom to forge new identities – the potential for transformation. Anna also made another great point that all these exchanges within the P2P programme occupy a liminal space of not only the temporal and physical distance between the exchanges, but fostering a new space for ideas within all these connections made, of what next? This echoes what I mentioned at the start, there is a potentiality to the simplicity of the general aesthetics of Peer to Peer.
Amongst the series of exchanges in photographs, I found their two images of car parks particularly poignant in Joseph’s beautiful capturing of the car park as a liminal space (figure 3), as well as Anna’s contemplative response in exploring what it means to be a non-being in a non-place (figure 4). The shrub represents this being that is alive, that no one pays attention to, and exists quite permanently in the otherwise transitory space of a car park for the purpose we give it. (slight tangent) I once laughed myself to tears when thinking of the car park as a park for cars, where cars go and have fun and play with one another. It’s so ironic that the cars just sit there while they wait for their human owners to come back and fetch them, staying in one spot – dead and useless – in this park. Parks as we know it are where kids go have fun – though the fun they have is also quite liminal, maybe not in the children’s minds when they are flowing with play, but to adults, there will always be a time to go home.
So what is liminality? Liminality is life, as Victor Hugo’s maxim “waiting is life” so simply states. Joseph expressed in the symposium session that the world is indifferently blunt, and existence is liminal. “That’s the scary part of liminality. There’s always uncertainty, but there’s potential to embrace liminality, to decolonialise where you are, and to embrace the potential of what you can be.” Redeye’s director Paul Hermann led the session in a very organic, genuine, and curious way which gave the artists AND curator lots of opportunities to reflect on and share their experience. It was an incredibly insightful session, where a lot of questions of the state of being in transition were raised, which were addressed further when I watched their Photo Conversation.
Figure 3: Joseph’s photograph of an empty parking space.
Figure 4: Anna’s response to Joseph’s image, also of an empty parking lot.
Tender Intimacy – Re:Home
There is still so much to be explored. Re:Home by Johannes Pretorius, Lucy Saggers, and Iris Sham made me immediately fall in love with their tender, quiet, profound letter exchanges. It was an unhesitating dive into intimacy. An immediate connection is drawn through lettering and discussing about each other’s family and home.
They share insights they derive from tiniest of things, given the opportunity to be shared through this exchange. “The evening light mottled through ancient glass falls in patterns across the dresser inherited from my parent’s home which has been the backdrop of our lives for almost twenty years”, says Lucy. They talk about the art they consumed, ones they recall but don’t fully understand, yet the colours vaguely remembered as a fleeting feeling not yet exported in HD. The sweet apologies of a shared understanding of time, punctuality, and consideration.
Iris’ sentiment about Mid-Autumn Festival and emotional blackmailing within the family really hit home as I imagine most Chinese people would feel the same. I can also resonate with the desire to be rooted in family rather than place. Her apologies of lateness in replying were almost like a planned suspense once we get to read her beautiful letter that revealed the deepest reflections of familial bondage, rootedness, and her experience of wanting to cry after eating locally grown vegetables, concluded with a poetic image of an uprooted tree (figure 5).
Every reply is followed by another thoughtful reply that gives all the warm fuzzy feelings. The resulting gallery of final images are a collection of emotional, witty, intimate depictions of home. The three individuals with three different mother tongues come together and form an evidently valuable exchange which makes me love the art of lettering even more intensely, and it was one I was sad to see end.
Figure 5: Iris’ photograph of an uprooted tree.
Making and unmaking our home –Instagram Takeover
Connecting again to home, the images by Seongsu Kim for Instagram Takeover chosen by Fion Hung Ching Yan 洪澄欣 somehow gave me the beautiful sense of the process of making a home despite their post-apocalyptic appearance. I often think home is made by the attention and care we give it. From the astronaut sweeping in the infinite darkness, to the observation of the odd matching green hose in the grass like a curious spot of paint on the walls, to the construction of a scarecrow using trash, to a silver gloved hand clearing out biohazardous rubbish, to what I image to be the usage of signage to mark a place as your own, assuming control over a space, to finally a mapping of place. To me, it was a beautifully dystopian yet humble story of homemaking. Upon reading Fion’s reflections of Seongsu’s project on Instagram, I see more of the destruction of the environment and our miniscule and laughable effort to make up for it. The astronaut is against nature, the sublimely destructive yet profoundly beautiful force, alone in his admirable yet pitiful attempt – like all of us eco-conscious individuals – to try to reverse the effects of our existence.
Seongsu’s images chosen by Fion.
Fion seems to visualise her experience of growing up around within Chinese culture so clearly, one which I can very easily relate to. Her surrealism reminds me of the photographs of Cerise Doucède, but much more cryptic, with sentiments hidden behind objects that are seemingly in plain sight but only she will know the real meaning/story behind it.
I struggle with confronting and retelling traumas that are inflicted by people still existing, especially my family. How does one make work that might expose things that prefer to be hidden away, of people you still care about, who will see the work and know what I’m telling the rest of the world? What are the ethics? Is there an advantage to bilingualism that experiences can be articulated in a language they don’t understand? I don’t have that, so where do I find the courage and freedom to let it all out, or is it right to do in the first place? Maybe that’s why the face is always hidden in Fion’s photographs. We want to be plain, direct, vulnerable, spill every thought, but the fight against reservation, taboo, ethics are still present in our abstraction of representation, hoping that people will understand its significance through motifs and similar experiences. I know the story she’s telling; at the same time I have no idea.
“The Skeletons in the Closet”. It reminds me of the being caught between the presumably loving presence of quiet proximity with one’s family, and the helpless inability to communicate one’s thoughts – the skeletons in the closet – to fulfil the desire of creating a strong foundation for a relationship based on the tangibility of language. Whereas her earlier projects are more directly reaching out to her family (mother) using the camera as a tool to connect and understand, the abstracted symbolism in her recent images seem to convey something more potent, deeper, darker, the dreadful frustrations of growing up in Chinese culture, knowing something is wrong but not knowing how to deal with it. I have a question for Fion, what’s the Chinese term you’re referring to for Omelette Social Atmosphere???
Fion’s images chosen by Seongsu.
Togetherness –Three Places. In a Moment of 90 seconds.
Speaking of the inability to find a sense of togetherness, let’s move onto brief moments in time where Terry Ng 吳漢曦, Edwin Chuk Yin Man 竺諺民, and Emma Lambert created that feeling whilst being distant in every other sense. It was looking indepthly into the Miro board where they shared their thoughts and ideas as well as final images, that I discovered all the effort and consideration put into this project. Although the results add up to 270 seconds, it amalgamated from much more than that. I’m reminded that it’s a hard task to form concreteness from several themes and key words that everyone interprets differently, but as the process develops, it takes a single moment (hah) of everyone going “Yes, that’s the one” to start creating. You can see through their communication that they made the effort to be present for each other in these planned moments of 90 seconds, resulting in contemplative yet dynamic images of the disparate locales of UK and Hong Kong, including Poland! It reminds me of the anti-social media sensation BeReal, but a much more thoughtful, orchestrated moment of shared time.
Emma’s first moment consisted of a picture shot per second of the 90, then layering them together, split into a 30 second triptych. I thought it was the perfect interpretation and was very satisfying to see the result. I only noticed the layering after reading her insights and contemplations about the images on the Miro. Terry’s first moment GIF reminded me of the sleepless nights I use to spend looking out of my 7th floor bedroom window on a mountain into the streets of Fo Tan, incessantly wondering how cars are still roaming around at 4am, and why lights from random wall openings in the building only its naked form of raw concrete and iron bars opposite to me, are switching on and off. Hong Kong is a magical, unstopping place – fruitful even, or especially, in the dead of night. Edwin’s pictures on the other hand, captures the rare stillness of Hong Kong encountered in his everyday passages, exaggerated by the dimness of light and quietness of black and white. Not a single person in sight, only light bulbs. I was shocked to read that Emma’s second moment (figure 6) was taken at 11:30pm. Photography is truly fascinating in how it lends a fresh perspective of our everyday, and how the lack of control or giving in to chance breeds new insights and ideas.
Figure 6: Emma’s second moment at 11:30pm. What??
It was refreshing to be able to dive into their whole process, getting lost (in the best sense of the word) in their idea sharing and responses to each other. The result is three shared moments, but beyond that, there are shared explorations of each other’s homes through Google Maps, each other’s local histories through archives, and even finding out more about their own homes through another set of eyes from the other side of the world. I also loved the work they shared that didn’t turn out quite as they expected, like Edwin’s underexposed photographs of a theatre rehearsal where the light bulbs became the protagonists, which seem to have carried on into his first set of images.
I can feel a sense that the three of them all had trust in the process, they all continued thinking of each other even when ideas didn’t really work out, they were all invested in the collective process of mutual learning. I love how they find magic and new connections in each other’s pictures, like Terry’s interpretation of the seeming randomness of Emma’s choice to capture the sun behind the clouds, as a full circle moment going back to the initial idea of 90 seconds being a moment according to the sundial. The sense of togetherness that they all felt within those moments is reminiscent of the wholesomeness of distant lovers looking at the moon.
Loved this image of “Dapper Gentlemen” that Emma found in Brugges, Belgium in 2019. Couldn’t stop staring at their proud swaggy faces, imagining the way they carry themselves everyday, their interactions, group dynamic, and their individual identities.
Concluding thoughts :’)
It’s difficult to summarise all I’ve learnt through attending this programme. There’s too little time and not enough excuses to deep dive into the other projects (like I did here for Power of Place) that fascinated me so much after attending the symposium sessions. I’m just so happy that this relationship between the UK and HK is made so fruitful, so generous, so loving through this unique programme.
The depth of connection exposed through transparency of process throughout this programme is an immense takeaway for me. This is exaggerated through Florence Lam and Nicola Dale’s project “I Become A Question For You”, turning the ubiquitous awkward language of video calls into a performance. Another highlight for me is the Back/Forth project with Clara & Gum in Sheffield and Mark Chung in Hong Kong, which was just so much fun, so touching, so many rabbit holes opened. I kept thinking about their conversation days and weeks after it, I’d very highly recommend watching the recording for a conversation full of lovely humour and insight. Another artwork I keep going back to is Hicham Gardaf’sThe Storyteller, a beautiful re-telling of the life of a storyteller concerning translation, language, and education. For me, the film expanded the notion of how one can spend their lives, what one can do for a living. The journey of an artist, creative person, storyteller, is never predictable, at times unexplainable, full of mystery and perpetual change of perspective for what the future holds.
After a whole month, attending every symposium session, I still haven’t gotten to the bottom of every project. It’s crazy how much knowledge was derived, all these artists and organisations I’ve discovered, the amount and quality of artworks that are creating lasting repercussions, through my purely digital engagement of this programme. I have immense gratitude to everyone who was involved in creating Peer to Peer: UK / HK. A wonderful memoir has been collated of the organisers and artists’ reflections. Super duper special thanks to Núria for giving me the opportunity to write for Open Eye and thank you to the team and Sarah for saying yes, it’s been a more than wonderful journey.
Enter now! Student Writing Competition: New Voices Peer to Peer: UK/HK 2022 reflecting on international exchange programme Peer to Peer: UK/HK 2022.Winners will receive a £60 cash prize, and have their writing published on the Peer to Peer: HK/UK 2022 website. Deadline is 12 noon, 28th November 2022. The submission form is here.
WHO are we looking for?
Any undergraduate or postgraduate who is excited to write about art and ideas! Writing could be something that they are already passionate about, or their first time writing a short text like this. The aim of the New Voices Peer to Peer: UK/HK 2022 writing competition is to platform new critical voices around contemporary arts and related, or associated, ideas.
We will select up to SIX current students who submit texts that best fit the brief. Each winner will receive a £60 cash prize, have their writing published on the Peer to Peer:HK/UK 2022 website, and shared across the world via all 18 of our art organisations’ social media sites.
WHAT are we looking for?
We are looking for a 500 word piece of either:
Critical writing in the form of a review
Or creative writing in any shape or form.
Entrants can choose ANY art project to write about from the Peer to Peer:UK/HK 2022 online visual arts festival. They can also choose to respond to the festival as a whole. The Peer to Peer: UK/HK 2022 projects have been made in exchange between artists in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong, and span film photography, video, digital collage, performance, poetry, drawing, painting and more. Each artist’s project has been published in full and is easy to view online via the festival website. This is an exciting, diverse and global programme of contemporary art in many forms… and we’d like to select a range of writing that truly reflects that!
Advice:
Submitting a review. A review is typically your informed opinion, in your own words. This review should be a pleasure to read by anyone who visits the Peer to Peer: UK/HK 2022 website, and can reflect on the festival as a whole, or on individual artists’ projects. Do bear in mind the short word count: what can be said in that space that sticks in the reader’s mind? We are looking for a critically balanced, informative and entertaining 500 words.
Submitting creative writing. This submission will use a project from Peer to Peer: UK/HK 2022 as a starting point to experiment with related themes. This could take the form of a poem, short fictional story, or any short form experimental structure that truly reflects the artwork. Again, it must stick to 500 words or under.
Whichever you choose to submit, please write with our core audience in mind: people from the visual arts sector or with a keen interest in visual arts, nationally and internationally. We would prefer to avoid overly academic language, or on the opposite end of the scale, ‘dumbing down’.
Themes of interest:
For New Voices Peer to Peer: UK/HK 2022, we are particularly interested in writing that considers the festival content in relation to one or more of the following themes:
Collaboration as a route to innovative practice.
Revealing the creative process.
The question of international working in an era which recognises the climate crisis.
The Judges:
Critical Writing (review)
Mariama Attah. Mariama is a photography curator, writer and lecturer with a particular interest in overlooked histories, and understanding how photography and visual culture can be used to amplify under-represented voices. Mariama is Head of Exhibitions at Open Eye Gallery. She was previously Assistant Editor of Foam Magazine. Prior to this, she was Curator of Photoworks, where she was responsible for developing and curating Brighton Photo Biennial and was Commissioning and Managing Editor of Photoworks Annual.
Lindsay Taylor. Lindsay has led the strategic development of the University of Salford Art Collection since 2013, brokering key partnerships with artists and arts organisations across the UK and internationally. She is passionate about supporting artists, pioneering a collecting policy based on co-commissioning new work in 3 strands: Chinese Contemporary Art, About the Digital and From the North. She also established a Graduate Scholarship Programme in 2014 with Castlefield Gallery and studio partners in Salford. She has co-commissioned new work by numerous artists from the UK and internationally and continues to contribute to national debate about developing contemporary collections. Lindsay co-organised Peer to Peer:UK/HK 2022 with Sarah Fisher from Open Eye Gallery. Lindsay is Chair of Redeye the Photography Network, a trustee of the Peter Scott Gallery Trust at Lancaster University and on the advisory board for the Grundy Art Gallery in Blackpool. Previously she held positions at the Harris Museum & Art Gallery, Preston, Tate Liverpool, and The Walker.
Creative Writing
Laura Robertson. Laura is a professional art critic with a decade’s worth of experience freelancing for the world’s top art magazines, including, frieze, Art Monthly and the national culture show, BBC Radio 4 Front Row. She employs a blend of journalism, fiction and storytelling in her work as a form of experimental criticism, and is currently writing a creative non-fiction book about night terrors, horror and contemporary art. She is a graduate of MA Writing, Royal College of Art. She co-founded The Double Negative indie arts magazine in 2011, which continues to champion cultural criticism from underrepresented writers about under-the-radar creative practice.
Maria Gulina. Maria is Digital Marketing, Communications and Content Producer at Open Eye Gallery. She previously worked as a journalist and an editor in independent media and environmental NGOs. She is a graduate of MA Media and Cultural Studies, Lancaster University, and has fiction and non-fiction publications. She is interested in intersections of art, nature and participatory practices.
Submission details:
To enter the New Voices Peer to Peer: UK/HK 2022 writing competition please:
then email to maria@openeye.org.uk no later than 12 noon on Monday 28th November 2022.
Winners will be informed no later than week commencing Monday 5th December 2022. Unfortunately, we do not have the capacity to provide feedback to the entries which are not selected.
