Islands Off the Shore

Para Site and Spring Workshop presents the exhibition “Islands off the Shore of Asia”, based on the interpretations of the remote islands claimed by different nations across East Asia.

“Islands off the Shore of Asia” is based on the ideological, historical, mystical, and fictional interpretations of the remote and largely uninhabited islands claimed by different nations across East Asia.

In recent years, these small islets have become the focus of growing nationalism in the region and vehicles through which countries are choosing to project national pride and power.

A diverse panel of international artists has contributed to the exhibition, including Julieta Aranda (Mexico), Rosa Barba (Italy), Alvaro Barrios (Colombia), James T. Hong (Taiwan), Katsushika Hokusai (Japan), Takiji Kobayashi (Japan), Charles Lim (Singapore), Pak Sheung Chuen (Hong Kong), Howie Tsui (Hong Kong/Canada), MAP Office (Hong Kong), Ming Wong (Singapore) in collaboration with Thomas Tsang/Dehow Projects (USA), and Zheng Guogu (China).

The work of featured artist and filmmaker, James T. Hong, directly addresses the theme of discord among nations in Asia. He personally made several unsuccessful journeys to reach some of the disputed isles, including an attempt to land on Diaoyutai Island, which both China and Japan claim. In each case,
authorities turned him away. Hong was finally able to reach Dokdo Island, currently in dispute between Korea and Japan, and used it as the location for his most recent film, which is featured in the exhibition.

Berlin-based Singaporean artist Ming Wong will be back in Hong Kong for his second Spring/Para Site research residency in September. He will complete a new commission based on research carried out in the first residency, focused on Cantonese Opera and Science Fiction cinema. He plans to work with Thomas Tsang, Assistant Professor of Department of Architecture at The University of Hong Kong and Founder at Dehow Projects. Together they will develop theatrical designs that fuse the aesthetics of traditional Hong Kong Cantonese Opera’s Bamboo Theatre and classic Science Fiction Cinema.

Ming hopes to combine traditional and low-fi materials and techniques to create theatrical-film-set structures that express the 'futuristic' architecture of science fiction space travel. The work will reference Tarkovsky’s Soviet sci-fi classic film, SOLARIS, which deals with failed human attempts to communicate with alien intelligence.

“Islands off the Shore of Asia” represents the second phase of the exhibition, “A Journal of the Plague Year: Fear, Ghosts, Rebels, SARS, Leslie, and the Hong Kong Story”, which last year was launched at Para Site and is now showing in an expanded version at the Arko Art Centre in Seoul, where it opened 30 August and will run through 16 November 2014.

For this exhibition, Spring and Para Site teamed up to use sci fi and fiction to explore the current ideological turn towards nationalism and confrontation in the region. While the previous show focused on Hong Kong’s identity in the context of the SARS epidemic and the city’s near shut down in 2003, the current exhibit explores the region’s small, largely uninhabited islands, which are effectively invisible on maps but are now the object of territorial claims by every single nation in East Asia.

Álvaro Barros, El mar de las Malvinas, 2013. Mixed media, dimensions variable. Courtesy of the Artist

James T. Hong, A Chinaman's Chance (Dokdo and Senkaku), video still, 2014. Courtesy of the Artist

Rosa Barba, Outwardly from the Earth's Centre, video still, 2007. Courtesy of the Artist

Left: MAP office, Hong Kong Is Land, 2014. C-print and pen on fine art paper, 8 drawings, each 80 x 190 cm. Courtesy of the Artist. Right: Howie Tsui, Spectral Residue, 2014, site-specific frescoes (created for Spring). Courtesy of the Artist

from September 27 until December 7, 2014
Islands Off the Shore of Asia
curated by Cosmin Costinas and Inti Guerrero
Spring Workshop
3/F Remex Centre
42 Wong Chuk Hang Road
Aberdeen, Hong Kong

Islands Off the Shore

Para Site and Spring Workshop presents the exhibition “Islands off the Shore of Asia”, based on the interpretations of the remote islands claimed by different nations across East Asia.

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