Artists’ reflections on destructive power of nature take on new meaning after Hong Kong’s summer of protest
- One was struck by water pouring through a shopping mall roof, and by police using water cannons, the other by the fate of trees flattened by Typhoon Mangkhut
- Both blend video footage and everyday objects in a way that compels reflection on current events in Hong Kong and what it means to be a Hongkonger
Cockroaches, remnants of trees mutilated by last year’s Typhoon Mangkhut, postcards of Hong Kong landmarks, polycarbonate acrylic sheets used to reinforce windows against storms, and footage from this summer’s anti-government rallies and protests – objects and images representative of the city, both glaring and subtle, fill Blindspot Gallery’s 7,000 sq ft industrial warehouse space.
Taken together they offer a timely narrative. They form the elements of an exhibition by two Hong Kong artists, “Liquefied Sunshine/Force Majeure”, at the gallery in Wong Chuk Hang. The show, by South Ho Siu-Nam and Luke Ching Chin-wai, compels visitors to reflect upon Hong Kong’s identity and unpack what it means to be a Hongkonger – and strikes a particularly deep chord at such a time.
The first things visitors to the exhibition see are 721 postcards of Hong Kong and Taiwan landmarks, almost fully obscured by white ink that mimics the effect of rain. This is Ching’s Liquefied Sunshine (2014-2015), and accompanies a video installation, Weather Report: Liquefied Sunshine (2014-2015), in which the artist subjects Hong Kong and Taiwan landmarks to torrential rainfall to emphasis the destructive power of water – and of politics.
He intends this artificial weather to create “a kind of magical space where multiple layers of fiction and reality intertwine”.
Ching explained the inspiration behind the work. “There were two images that lingered in my mind. First, the use of water cannons to disperse protesters in the 2014 ‘sunflower movement’ in Taiwan [against a free-trade pact with mainland China], and second, the rain falling through the ceiling of the Festival Walk mall [in Hong Kong’s Kowloon Tong neighbourhood during a storm in 2014].
