Pathfinder

3

Cheng Yuen Ho

5

Chu Wing Lam Kelly

6

Chung Sin Wa

7

Hui Gi Wai Echo

8

Lau Mei Po

9

Lee See Wing

10

Cassie Kaixin Liu

11

Liu Shiyan

12

Ticko Liu

13

Ma Wing Man

15

Ngaw Hiu Nam

16

Shawn Pak Hin Tang

17

Wong Hiu Tung

19

Wong Kit Kwan

20

Wu Hoi Yan

22

Xuan Yumeng

23

Yeung Yin Ting

24

Zeng Chi Pang

IAM international art moves presents with Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University

The search for new and old paths represents multiple states of existence: a metamorphosis, a liberation, a negotiation, or a backtracking. How is the past associated with the future? How do individuals navigate through collective ideas? How are cultures connected to one and another? These questions, concerning the ideas of path, connection and relation, anchor the exhibition in a complex socio-political reality.

‘Pathfinder’ takes as a departure point a pluralist understanding of finding paths, attempting to open up a space for artistic expression that is constantly in dialogue with personal histories and identity politics.

The exhibition features artworks by 18 emerging artists from Hong Kong, who have found their path to Berlin. Their art practices involve various forms and mediums, including painting, sculpture,

1

photography, printmaking, moving image, and performance. Through exploring as pathfinders, the participating artists not only curate a space for the audience to navigate, read and interact, but also map out infinite possibilities for their own futures.

Yet as always, paths are not liner, but rhizomatic.

They have no beginning and no end, but are always changing, growing, full of possible turns. When the paths overlap, they generate a map of multiplicities.

It is just like what Deleuze and Guattari have written in A Thousand Plateaus: ‘Run lines. Never plot a point! Speed turns the point into a line! Be quick, even when Standing still! Line of chance, line of hips, line of light.’

The exhibition is the outcome of the 2019 IAM international art moves workshop. It is organised

by German artists and curators Martin Müller and Anne Müller, and was launched at the Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University in May 2019. Its collective curation is the testimony to the training provided through the workshop.

2

Cheng Yuen Ho

It’s Normal to be Incomplete 2018 Inkjet print on paper Set of 20, 21 × 29.7 cm each We are something else 2019 Inkjet print on paper Set of 3, 21 × 29.7 cm each

In the photographic series It’s Normal to be Incomplete, Cheng Yuen Ho uses sofa as a metaphor for something spiritually necessary for our survival.

It symbolises something similar to fellowship and kinship. Through removing the sofas and capturing the emptiness of the living rooms, Cheng seeks to express that no one’s life is absolutely perfect, and we can hardly escape from the sense of insecurity and fear.

In We are something else, Cheng uses the language of illustration to convey a determination of overcoming crisis: ‘We are something else, and the whole world is watching us; we stick together and thrive in bad times.’

3

4

Chu Wing Lam

Chung Sin Wa

Etiquette asks questions about abstract painting, including the history of action painting and the discussion on the gendered body portrayed in its flatness and pureness.

Compared to the mind, the body is often associated with more inferior qualities. Chu Wing Lam Kelly seeks to offer a feminist critique to debase the phallic mastery in the act of painting, through transforming the painting’s body physically and disorienting the viewer’s expectation of how it should behave.

Etiquette 2019 Acrylic on canvas, sound-insulating expanding foam on vacuum cleaner, acrylic on canvas in a vacuum, seal bag, switch timer 224 × 142 cm, 56 × 80 × 59 cm, 38 × 10 × 34 cm

I want to tell you something 2019 Mono screen print on paper Set of 3, 118 × 84 cm each

Hey, how’s everything?

‘Not good.’

How bad?

‘I don’t know.’

Do you have anything to say?

‘Yes.’ More than often, we find it hard to channel our emotions and experiences through language. Chung Sin Wa believes that our expressions are often bound by existing words and phrases. I want to tell you something explores the state of aphasia in which one cannot find the right words to describe one’s states of mind.

5

6

Hui Gi Wai Echo

Lau Mei Po

‘The complementary coloured light is interwoven together; they cancel out each other, leaving only the shadow to capture their individual existence.’

In Yellowish Blue, Hui Gi Wai Echo stages two artificial light sources in symmetry, respectively displaying the colour yellow and blue. In the RGB colour system, mixing the primary colour blue with the complementary colour yellow would produce the colour white. This results from our experience of negative afterimage left in the retina, which is a physiological phenomenon known as a visual ‘aftersensation’ – a state when a complementary colour of light is left in one’s vision after one’s eyes is flashed with light. If one’s eyes are exposed to yellow light only, blue light would appear in the vision.

Yellowish Blue 2018 Video, colour, no sound 5 min

Making Bad 2019 Public art project, video documentation, colour, sound 3 min

‘A bottle of water thrown away on the street, is it littering?

A bucket of water poured on the street, is it littering?

A cube of ice left on the street, is it littering?’

Lau Mei Po challenges a life that is subject to social norms and ideological restrictions which we never question about.

Making Bad documents a huge ice cube being left in the middle of the street and the reaction of passers-by. As the ice melts into water, it challenges our perception of legality and questions the context of public art.

The project was realised with the help of Yee Lim Godown & Cold Storage.

7

8

Lee See Wing

To capture their ephemeral existence, Cassie Kaixin Liu explores the ambiguous connection between light and sound in Hypocentre at -1m. She composes sonic and material waves that travel, radiate, and deliver messages together, in order to discover a reality beyond visuality.

Repetitive 2019 Inkjet print on paper Set of 4, 158 × 126 cm each

Hypocentre at -1m 2019 Video installation, colour, sound Dimension variable

Cassie Kaixin Liu

In Wagner’s opera Tristan and Isolde, the protagonist Tristan sings before he dies, ‘what, hear I the light?’ This most impossible sensual encounter operates on a simple paradox: one can never see light itself but only the reflection of light, so the only way to perceive light is through hearing.

Lee See Wing lives in Lohas Park, a new residential quarter situated in Tseung Kwan O, Hong Kong. Its name expresses a utopian wish for happiness, wealth, and sustainability. Yet in contrast to this optimist promise, Lee portrays the town as nothing but buildings with never-ending corridors.

‘The more you see, the more you don’t see.’ The same image repeats wherever you go. Repetitive seeks to express the dullness of the repetitive urban life that we cannot escape from.

9

10

Liu Shiyan

Ticko Liu

Behemoth 2019 Acrylic and oil pastel on canvas 510 Ă— 300 cm

Hugger 2018 Inkjet print on paper Set of 5, 84 Ă— 118 cm each

11

Speaking of monsters, one might think of Godzilla or Ultra Kaiju from the Ultra Series. Yet Ticko Liu finds the reality to be even more absurd. In Behemoth, he captures monsters in real life as the spitfire behemoths that attack their own people.

12

Ma Wing Man

In the Lack of 2018 Neps and threads from people collected with, inkjet print on paper Dimensions variable

13

In despair, she was looking for a home.

‘I started missing the steadiness and a place I can go back to.’

For the artist, what gives meanings to a home is the people living within. During the journey, she started collecting neps and threads from the clothes of friends or strangers she met in anywhere at any time, sometimes silently, sometimes noticeably.

During her half-year study exchange in Zurich, Switzerland, Ma Wing Man unwillingly moved between ten different apartments under pressure. At that time, the urge of finding a place to stay and the anxiousness of meeting new faces all the time were altogether comprised into the unease and unpredictability lying ahead of her.

In In the lack of, the artist created a nest using these found materials, which once connected her to other people. At the end of the day, comfort and belongingness are always about people, connections, and relationships. The intimacy of each single action between the two people is what produces happiness in an unfamiliar city.

14

Ngaw Hiu Nam

Shawn Pak Hin Tang

At Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, there stand a pair of spotlights across the street. When visitors come at night, the powerful beams light up the entire architecture with their focus fixed on the portrait of Mao Zedong on the facade.

In Spotlight, Ngaw Hiu Nam draws upon her own memory and reproduces the scene at Tiananmen when she paid a visit. The toweringly shaped, symmetrically positioned spotlights have left her infinite space for imagination. How long have the spotlights been standing there? How much have they witnessed? What have they been through? On this seemingly empty, spacious stage, light visualises, reveals, and rules the politics of our seeing.

Spotlight 2019 Graphite on paper, spotlight Dimensions variable

Chorus in 4’11” 2019 Four-channel video installation, colour, sound 4 min 11 sec In a more globalised world than ever, collision and fusion of contemporary cultures have profoundly affected the way we speak, listen, and communicate. In Chorus in 4’11”, participants from different cultural background are invited to choose and sing a song in front of the camera. One listens to song of his or hers, while the others listen to songs of the strangers. Putting the earphones on to listen and interpret, we will meet through the rhythm, the beat, and the sound.

15

16

Wong Hiu Tung

Wong Hiu Tung’s work revolves around the materiality of ceramic and glass. In Deconstruction & Re-forming, the making process comprises tracing, deconstruction, and reforming the pottery, as to transform its original functionality.

Through altering the compositions of the traditional, simplyshaped pottery, the artist seeks to challenge a pragmaticistic understanding of handcrafts.

In another ceramic work, Un-fortune Cookies, thin layers of clay are folded into the shape of fortune cookie before firing. Yet the cookie-shaped ceramics carry unfortunate messages instead of the fortunate ones. In The Cactus, the blown glass evokes the shape of the thorny-skinned plant.

Yet fired in the glass oven, the aggressive, dangerous glass thorns were melted by the high temperature, rendering the objects as harmless and friendly.

Deconstruction & Re-forming 2018 Ceramics and glass Dimensions variable

Un-fortune Cookies 2019 Ceramics Dimensions variable

17

The Cactus 2018 Glass Dimensions variable

18

Wong Kit Kwan

Wu Hoi Yan

When will the Dawning Break?

2019 Coloured pencil, pastel and oil on canvas 90 × 70 cm

Untitled 2019 Arduino controller, motor, iron sheet, wood 40 × 40 × 10 cm

‘The day my only worry is where to graze.’

19

20

Wu Hoi Yan

Xuan Yumeng

Prosthetic Ocean 2019 Paper, coloured pencil, pastel and oil on canvas 80 × 60 cm Under the Skin 2019 Silica gel, plastic bead, animal fur, wool, needle, and fibre 168 × 168 cm

‘They feed me.

They raise me.

They control me.

But still, I want to get out of here.

To freedom.’

21

Inside an ill body, the flesh and soul struggling and suffering from chronic pain are buried under the normal skin. In life, invisible illnesses bring about pain and secrets that are hard to articulate with languages. Drawing inspiration from personal experience, Xuan Yumeng applies colourful yet humble materials, which can be easily found in daily life, onto the back of each circular, skinlike silica pad. By touching the pads without the sight of the back patterns, they evoke ill organs and generates disturbing tactile feelings.

22

Yeung Yin Ting

Zeng Chi Peng

In Yeung Yin Ting’s photographic works, The Tiny Things refers to the depicted small toys she once bought from a store in Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong. In the making process, a scanner was used to photograph and enlarge these tiny objects; the black background then became an empty stage – an expanding dark space where things are hidden from our sight.

‘Things that have happened in the past cannot be easily wiped away, but their momentary existence can be memorized, even though it may just be a flash in the darkness.’

The Tiny Things 2017–ongoing Inkjet print on foamboard Set of 7, dimensions variable

Starry Night 2019 Mono screen print on paper Set of 10, 29 × 29 cm each

‘Stars may fade, as darkness fills the air. Through the mist, a solitary trumpet flare.’ (Glory to Hong Kong) On 13 Sept 2019, a date known as the Mid-Autumn Festival in Chinese culture, the Lion Rock in Hong Kong had an unusual scene. In response to the social unrest triggered by the government’s extradition bill introduced in the summer of 2019, protesters went for a climb with flashlight and laser pointers, forming a united line of light on that very night for family reunion.

Starry Night recalls, reimagines and ruminates over this special moment. It tells a story about the darkest, strangest nights, when stars may shine from the ground.

23

24

Participating Artist Cheng Yuen Ho perceives things with extreme rationality. He enjoys being a quiet spectator in life and making up theories secretly. Identifying discrepancies between statements is his unwilling hobby, which often exhausts him to some extent.

Cheng believes art is a way to unburden himself and to make responses in a humorous way. With love for movies and graphic novels, his works often possess a strong sense of storytelling that explores the fear of being an individual in this world and the absurdity of daily life. Cheng works with comic book, illustration and photography, with particular interests in the study of humanity, subconsciousness and dark humour. tonycheng191596@gmail.com

Chu Wing Lam Kelly believes that art is a way to question idealised notions surrounding us. Her practice includes painting, moving image and collaborative events. Particularly, debates around the history of painting and feminist theory inspire her to challenge normativity, to question the boundaries of taste, and to disorient the audience’s expectation. In her works, she transforms different materials and sites, which are often abandoned, neglected, or appear ordinary. Her works have been exhibited in group exhibitions in London, South Korea, and Hong Kong. chuuuuukelly@gmail.com

Chung Sin Wa focuses on depicting nocturnal landscape through drawing, painting and printmaking, which enables her to articulate scenes, moments and emotions. By exploring diverse materials, she creates textures to capture memorable and intimate experiences. In her works,

25

the exploration of pain plays a central role.

She believes that all existence in the world are unavoidably accompanied with pain.

Chung associates the struggle to break free from pain with the process of creating art. ‘It is uneasy to let go of things that are important to us, yet we always end up in the cycle of possession and loss.’

chiccsw@gmail.com | chiccsw.wixsite.com/chungsinwa

Hui Gi Wai Echo primarily creates works that explore the boundaries of the human senses and perception through an interdisciplinary method combining art and science. She delves into the limitations of our visual sense, using optical illusion to question our reality. She often works with light, chemicals, images and moving images, so as to arouse discussions beyond normal visuality. Her works have been exhibited internationally; selected group exhibitions include ‘The Haunted’, Cookhouse Gallery, Chelsea College of Arts, London (2019), ‘Zone Out’, Seolabul Gallery, Chung-Ang University, Seoul (2019), ‘Tri-Pho’, AVA gallery, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong (2018), and ‘Fremd | HBKsaar Rundgang’, HBKsaar, Saarbrücken (2017). echohuiecho@gmail.com | echohuiecho.com

Lau Mei Po practices in a conceptually driven approach. Her works encompass installation, video, public art, and community-based projects. She observes inconspicuous things in the city, reflect upon social phenomena, and discuss societal paradoxes with experimental works. Lau is also a designer, who founded a collective in 2013 that organise and participate in different art projects.

She has been living in Beijing, London and Tanzania. opiemual@gmail.com | laumeipo.com

Lee See Wing primarily creates works that discuss the relationship between emotions and identities. In her works, she sets up questions for herself, such as what it means to be a girl, to be a daughter, to

26

be an art student, or to be a Hong Konger.

She believes the conflict of possessing multiple identities brings about a sense of frustration, emptiness or guilt. She often transforms these dark feelings into illustrations and prints with a sense of light humour. leeseewingirene@gmail.com

Cassie Kaixin Liu is an artist and writer based in southern China. Her interests lie at the intersections of visual arts, creative writing and critical theory. She works across different forms and mediums, spanning installation, videography, performance, and writing projects. In her practice, she frequently uses varying motifs found in sound, light and texts to construct spaces, atmospheres and narratives. Her works discuss topics ranging from the interrelationship between body and space to regional diasporic experiences in southern China, which are often resulted from and fuelled by her negotiations with her own identities and surroundings. cassieliux@gmail.com | cassieliu.com

Liu Shiyan is an artist who focuses her practice on intimate relationships and reflection upon the true self. The characters she depicts in her works have simple, smooth shapes and no facial features. She often delivers messages through portraying posture and colours, directly offering the viewers an opportunity to reflect on their own relationships and self-identities. Additionally, she also works on collaborative and transdisciplinary projects that involve performance and installation with artists from different background. She explores body movements that trigger relations between people. lauseain@gmail.com | seain.tumblr.com

Ticko Liu is an artist who uses painting to explore his personal experience and the idea of self-consciousness. For him, painting is a way to approach art. He

27

values the experience of painting, and how the audience perceive such experiences.

He claims that painting is a way to freeze time. ‘It is like a room where everything is frozen inside, so that we can walk around, explore and feel.’ Living in Hong Kong, a ridiculous and paradoxical place to him, he draws inspiration from the city’s everyday life. His works capture and transform the bewildering things he encounters in the society. waihang.liu@gmail.com

Ma Wing Man works on projects that create experiences, scenarios or journeys by involving different audiences. Inspired by participatory art and everyday life, Ma explores the intimacy and connection between people. In most of her works, the audience are the participants who directly engage in the creative event organised by her. She also accentuates the delicate minutiae of everyday life. The inspirations for her works often come from her sincere feelings, frustrations and eagerness toward the environment. Her works have been exhibited in group exhibitions in Hong Kong, Chengdu, Berlin and Zurich. mwm.mandy@gmail.com | mawingman.com

Ngaw Hiu Nam is a painter who looks for possibilities on and beyond canvas. She also practices printmaking, photography and installation, which help her explore the language of painting. For her, every painting is a gentle frame to the wilderness of the world. She observes and looks for landscape in daily life while trying to make sense of the big world with her calm and quiet paintings. Her artworks often depict a little episode happened in the past, or a scene stuck in her head. She tells stories and evokes feelings through imageries. ashleyngaw@gmail.com | ashleyngaw.wordpress.com

Shawn Pak Hin Tang practices interdisciplinary subjects of the arts. He is interested in the cultures of everyday life, natural phenomenon, and experimental and controversial topics. He often collects,

transforms and assembles mundane materials, displacing them from domestic environments to site-specific spaces. He has obtained his first bachelor’s degree in interior design from Birmingham City University, and is currently based in Hong Kong.

shawnzytph@gmail.com

Wong Hiu Tung explores and experiments with the material of clay. Through the process of physical deconstruction, she seeks to challenge the simple, traditional forms of pottery, and to reassemble them into complex shapes. Her works transform potteries from functional housewares to non-functional sculptures, channeling the past, the present, and the future. She often defies the simplicity of potteries by altering the form of clay, glaze, and raw minerals in unusual combinations. cherubrub.wong@gmail.com

Wong Kit Kwan loves movie and indie dream pop. While the semester in his university was cut off due to political instability in Hong Kong, he was also suffering on the personal level. He has stopped reading about art and started reading Nietzsche’s. kelvinwkkwan@gmail.com

Wu Hoi Yan is an artist whose works transform and de-familiarise the conversant things through painting and drawing. She often starts with her particular observation on something minor and inconspicuous, while taking reference from novelists, sociologists, photographs she took, and strangers she meets in daily life. Her practice reconsiders the general knowledge on the form and structure of painting, while experimenting with the possibilities of materials, pushing the limits of how stories are presented and displayed. She is interested in the possibilities of personal emotions, understanding and languages applied to found objects.

Xuan Yumeng is an artist who pays attention to one’s internal feelings and the geometric structures of the external world. She perceives the world as an aggregation of symbols and colour pigments on a flat dimension and believes in the pure connection between internal facts and external expression through light reflections on the brain. In her works, she challenges the role of vision in visual arts and tries to break the boundaries between dimensions. Illustration and installation are her main approaches to place herself in a paradoxical society. Her works have been exhibited in Hong Kong and Japan. ericaxuanze@gmail.com

Yeung Yin Ting is keen on exploring the fundamental elements of media and visual arts, such as video, scanography, sculpture and drawing. Sensitive to the contrasting light and rhythms of objects, she explores new possibilities of visual arts through using her body as the medium in works such as Self Exploration – The City Peeper, which crossovers sculpture, photography and physics. Many of her works are inspired by daily life and momentary emotions.

tinayeung630@gmail.com | tinayeung630.wixsite.com/ artsite

Zeng Chi Pang creates works that record his ordinary life. He transforms his observations of various objects and their environment into printmaking and drawings with 80 percent facts and 20 percent imagination. Zeng is deeply influenced by comics, through which he studies the language of consecutive images and adopts a sense of dark humour in his works. He is currently studying in Hong Kong, and hopes to work in the field of independent publication. tripl3.tripl3@gmail.com | tripl3tripl3.tumblr.com

glawuhoiyan928@gmail.com | wuhoiyanglary.com

28

About IAM international art moves Founded by artist-curator Martin Müller and Anne Müller, IAM international art moves is a programme that presents art talents from around the world to Berlin, epicentre of the contemporary art world. The central aim is to give art students a real-life experience by creating an intercultural exhibition project in the context of a professional exhibition space.

The programme engages with art academies in different locations, including Brunei, Croatia, Indonesia, Peru, Singapore and Spain, providing learning opportunities for students. IAM’s activities consist of workshops and exhibitions. Through the workshop, the programme prepares its participants to realise an international art exhibition at Kunstquartier Bethanien in Berlin, where select works will be presented.

About Academy of Visual Arts The Academy of Visual Arts (AVA) is the first university academy of its kind in Hong Kong, providing professional visual arts undergraduate, postgraduate and research degree programmes linked to international exchange, current arts development and the fast-growing creative industries. AVA offers excellent teaching and is committed to nurturing creative and professional talent of international renown.

Being Hong Kong’s pioneering institution of its kind, Academy of Visual Arts strives to provide the best education in visual arts, combining studiobased research on contemporary issues of the visual arts and sustainable service for the cultural and creative sectors as well as for the community at large.

2019 marks the fifth collaboration between IAM and AVA.

29

Exhibition Advisors: Martin Müller, Anne Müller, Wong Chiu Tat Justin Administrative Staff: Choi Chi Hau Thickest Sponsors: