(10/8/2013)
Tak Cheong Lane FB
An event of a different kind, this was an artist talk in a series of events organized at the Run Run Shaw Creative Media Center (CMC) of City University of Hong Kong (CityU). Tak Cheong Lane is a group of artists/activists, more activists than artists. They were at the core of the Occupy Central (The Hong Kong financial district) movement, from where they moved to their current office on Tak Cheong Lane. They talked about Occupy Central, as well as about other events they organized or participated in: The Dock Workers strike, free party/concerts under a highway, and a project about homeless Nepali people in Hong Kong. The projects oscillated between activism (supporting a cause, organizing events) and ethnographic research (becoming part of disadvantaged communities and trying to understand them ‘from inside’, and presenting findings to public). In terms of references, they referenced Marcel Mauss’ research on gift economy, as well as Guy Debord’s theories of the society of the spectacle and the Situationist International strategies of breaking through the spectacle. The talk was a nice introduction, and it was also good to see someone working in this area while thinking about it in an artistic / sociological context, something which probably can cause antagonism with other charities working on religious or strictly humanist grounds.