It’s not often we’re able to connect house plants with diasporic memory and spirituality; an 80’s Hong Kong-styled blow-out, that leads the conversation towards subverting the objective gaze upon Asian women.
Entwined in the soft blurring light of an Xbox Kinect sensor, film projectors, and the scent of incense burning under fresh foliage, visitors at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art gathered on Friday evening for a double exhibition opening. At ground floor, the gallery space embodies a familiar Earthly Realm constructed by artists Man & Wah, a grounded experience not dissimilar to your Chinese grandma’s house.
Moving through the space, Wukong the Monkey King and other iconic Chinese mythological statues guide your journey to the upper floor that has been skilfully transformed into a heavenly realm of cosmic spirituality. A dark room awaits you, variously shaped low tables placed precariously at calf height are topped with delicate mounds of sandscapes, reminiscent of the mountains often seen in Daoist and Buddhist art.
Next door in 4A Labs, Winnie Cheung offers spiritual reflection, allowing an interactive art space to dominate alongside her award-winning short fantasy thriller Last Call. Cheung creates a haunted atmosphere that pairs with the genre using Pepper’s Ghost illusion techniques, handcrafted draping material that moves shadows around the red lit room.
Winnie Cheung, Man & Wah share similar paths originating from Hong Kong and being a part of the community of migrants moving overseas. Man & Wah describe the idea of diaspora with the analogy of pollen needing to be spread in order for new growth to bloom. As Eddie Ma noted, the duality of identity should be celebrated and seen as a superpower; to have the ability to see from the perspectives of multiple cultures and understand their values as a cross-cultural link. Eddie Ma is a member of Soul of Chinatown, a non profit organisation that advocates for the revitalisation of the mini city to serve the interests of the cultural community through storytelling, events, and programs.
Cheung spoke to me about her childhood in New York: “I think I’ve always ingrained my identity, feelings of home, and connection to Hong Kong through film. Going to the VHS shop every single weekend and seeing what’s the latest TVB series, what’s the latest film that’s coming out. That’s how I learned the language — that’s how I kept my Cantonese.” Through film, she reimagines the most ancient kind of storytelling, mythology, loosely basing her film off the Taoist snake woman Bái Shé Zhuàn, who transforms into a beautiful woman and falls in love with a mortal man. Cheung takes on this idea of diaspora assimilation, and its inevitable transformation of identity, using it to fiercely combat discriminatory ideas where Asian women are fetishized as objects.
Last Call reinvents Bái Shé Zhuàn’s story of transformation with a feminine twist, representing Asian women and the monstrous gaze society inflicts upon them. Visitors viewing sexual scenes of protagonist Claudia are confronted as she glares accusingly back at the audience, reclaiming her agency whilst blending ideas of psychological trauma, body horror, and cultural identity.
For over a millennium, Daoist art has long presented sweeping ink landscapes across scroll paper, attuned to spiritual ideas of harmony with nature. The Chinese philosophy and religious tradition often read alongside Buddhist texts, presents principles that further one’s interconnectedness with nature and the universe. It encourages a sense of balance and flow to what comes naturally in life. Daoist art often showcases mythological icons such as deities, motifs, symbolic animals, figures of wisdom including Laozi within natural vistas of rivers, mountains, and forest to evoke ideas of peace and tranquillity. The artists at the opening night have gifted a contemporary Daoist styled art, excelling through their own favoured mediums in installation, technology and film. Both sets of artists manage to refine these ideas through unique depictions of serene landscapes, plants and mythological storytelling. They successfully incorporate contemporary themes of diaspora shaped by their own family history of migration, survival, and the everyday life of those assimilated outside of their ancestral lands.
Navigating the negative space in the upper gallery whilst adjusting your eyes to the darkness proves tricky, until you’re enlightened by meeting deities Guanyin and Guangong, lit from the back wall with heavenly glow. Surrounding elements of cosmic constellations intensify the spiritual experience; here arises the Heavenly Realm, as intended by Man & Wah. Within the darkened space, the dulling of senses and forced caution around precarious small tables administers calm and slowness to the visitor, resonating beyond the gallery space.
4A Centre of Contemporary Asian Art will be exhibiting both Last Call by Winnie Cheung and Propagate/Germinate/Bloom until the third of August.
