Starprojects: Unlimited Space: The Re-imagination of Everyday Life

Hong Kong, January 29 – March 5, 2015, https://www.facebook.com/starprojects.space/

Artists: aaajao, Keith Lam, Michael Lee, Li Liao, Liu Shiyuan, Tang Kwok Hin; Curated by Leo Li Chen, Qu Chang, Wenqi Zeng

My first visit to starprojects made me hopeful. It is always nice to escape the claustrophobic grime of Hong Kong and Kowloon and head off to the New Territories. Starprojects is a lonely star in City One / Shatin, in the midst of uncountable monotonous housing blocks. The spacious Shing Mun riverside and bright sky was mirrored in the inside of the gallery space which could easily compete with the luxury art product boutiques of Central’s Pedder Building. The space was white and bright and spacious, a rare sight in Hong Kong.

Inside of starprojects’ show I sensed balance. Three curators vs. six artists. Two Hong Kong artists, one Singapore artist, three Chinese artists (each from a different city – Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan/Shenzhen). Some video, some sculpture, some photos, some media art, some site-specific intervention. A curatorial concept trying to balance post-modernism with post-internet(ism). A result of the Chinese love for ‘harmony’ or of three curators working on one show or both?

The complex balancing act brought its own difficulties too. The list of artists was probably more balanced than the list of artworks. Inside of the gallery space, there seemed to be a void. A void between different works that made me think that while the artists were selected carefully, the works were less aligned. This also created a void between the curatorial text (a wishful feeling) and the exhibit. As if the gap between Guy Debord’s proclamations (referenced in the text) and the clean white cube with carefully arranged art objects for sensory consumption was simply too big to be bridged.

Once the artworks were put under direct scrutiny of the curatorial text and it’s references, issues emerged: What did the Keith Lam’s shop-window-decoration-like cotton wool clouds have to do with Situationism or Michel de Certeaux’ practice of the everyday life? Or Xuwenkai’s ever-changing 3D landscape? Or Liu Shiyuan’s video mashup? Tang Kwok Hin’s work has often been inspired by his own surroundings and everyday experience that provided some link to the curatorial text. Li Liao’s and Michael Lee’s projects engaged most directly with the issues in the curatorial text: Creating a garden in starproject’s Sheung Wan office and re-scaling and positioning the black-and-white security pattern highlighting corners and steps in industrial buildings.

While there were shortcomings, I could feel that everyone in the exhibition wanted to do his best, and it was just as if it needed a bit more trying to make things fit together, or a bit more of a vision beyond compromise and harmony.

As a completely free mental association, this exhibition had a ‘Chinese’ feel to me (as opposed to Hongkongnese), and I found that refreshing. There were imperfections, and the English texts in the catalogue were littered with errors, but the whole emanated a strong feeling of ‘trying hard’, a kind of maker spirit that I cannot but appreciate. I could picture the curators, trying very hard make everything fit together, while struggling with the cultural meaning of the words they were making use of. Cutting and pasting and translating from multiple websites and books and press releases, trying to make the text look good and sound research based, looking for interesting and catchy things to make the audience engaged. It was this effort that touched me and that makes me hopeful.