Special Workshop by Kingsley Ng, Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University
General Introduction
Over the past few years, a good number of cultural practitioners in Hong Kong have moved to the fields and embarked on farming as a cultural practice. This is in line with recent geopolitics in the city, and also reminds one of the genealogical relationship between “culture”, “cultivation” and “agriculture.” Lai Chi Wo, a 400-year-old village at the border of Hong Kong, is an epitome of an evolving history of nature-man interaction that is reflective of changing cultural situations. Once a site of pristine nature, it grew into a thriving village with 800 inhabitants at its peak time. In the 1970s, it was abandoned when villagers relocated to the city and overseas. A few years ago, regeneration was spearheaded by ecological and cultural practitioners, as a joint venture aiming to restore the place’s historical and biological value. In the process, Lai Chi Wo, as well as a number of villages in the New Territories became a living archive of trans-culturality illustrative of (agri)cultural practices corresponding to context-bound thoughts about inhabitation of land. Such knowledge before rationally registered in logocentric discourses, will be discovered through multi-sensory experiences in this retreat.
Program by Day
Monday
Walking Trail / Check-in at Lai Chi Wo / Hakka Dinner / Night Safari with HKU Staff
Tuesday
Tour of Lai Chi Wo by the local / Farming Experience with Artist Monti / Hakka Lunch / Hakka Dessert Making / Workshops at Mui Tsz Lam / Dinner by Participants / Outdoor Cinema
Wednesday
Ching Chiu Festival at Gut O / Lunch at Gut O / Boat trip to Sai Kung / BBQ in Sai Kung
Thursday
Yim Tin Tsai Visit (catholic Hakka Village) / Reflection Time
Friday
Pak Sha O Visit with Ki Wong (British and American Living in the Hakka Village) / Debrief
Involved Persons
Kingsley Ng
Artist & Head of MA „Arts & Crafts“, Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University
Monti Lai, Artist
David Tsang, Chairman of the Cultural Development Society of Lai Chi Wo
Ki Wong, Lecturer HKBU AVA
http://ava.hkbu.edu.hk/people/ms-wong-suk-ki/