A conversation with Fu Liaoliao, head of the curatorial department of Ming Contemporary Art Museum (McaM)—our partner, host and unique exhibition space for SPOKEN / UNSPOKEN in Shanghai. McaM is currently the only institution in China that is primarily dedicated to performance and live-based art.

TC core team member and Shanghai local Zhao Chuan took the group on a break from the intensive preparation for Saturday’s exhibition at McaM and and provided an insight into the diversity of the local art scene from underground to big shot. Literally underground is AM Art Space‘s location downtown—the first station of our tour. There, the group had the privilege to meet four local artists: Yu Ji, Coca (Dai Jian Yong), Gao Jie and Wu Meng. In the afternoon, the group gathered at the museum of contemporary art PSA (Power Station of Art) for a guided tour through the current exhibition as well as a talk by Shi Hantao, chief coordinator of the 2018 Shanghai Biennale. Photos by Florian Geisseler and Franziska Meierhofer.

A conversation with artists Mayumi Arai and Nina Willimann who met in the first edition of Transcultural Collaboration in 2015. Throughout the past three years and despite being based as far apart as Zurich and Tokyo, they have continued to work together and have evolved their research and practice by exploring several fields of interest making use of a myriad of artistic means in the context of residency programs around the world. On October 20, they will be part of the exhibition opening and performance day SPOKEN / UNSPOKEN taking place in McaM’s villa in Shanghai.

Opening & Performances: 20 October 2018 2:00 – 6:00 pm Panel Talk: 21 October 2018 2:00 pm Exhibition: 21 October – 4 November 2018 Address: McaM – 436 East Yonghe Road, Jing’an District, Shanghai   We cordially invite to the opening of SPOKEN / UNSPOKEN on 20 October 2018 (Saturday) starting at 2:00 pm at McaM’s villa for a vibrant day full of performances and installations developed by 36 young international artists. Performances will be taking place at different time slots between 2pm and 5:30pm.   The performances and exhibition consider and display questions of language, cultural codes and artistic strategies dealing with implicit and explicit expression. By creating spaces of ambiguity, gaps and tensions, the entanglement of SPOKEN / UNSPOKEN poses a fundamental conundrum. To delve into their interrelatedness, it is key to move beyond a binary perception of the two aspects. This can be achieved by unveiling their coexistence in daily life, in different cultures and, lastly, in the arts themselves.   In the two-week exhibition, 36 artists will present their collaborative explorations of the spoken and unspoken, the tangible and intangible, as …

Renowned Hong Kong artist and social activist Kacey Wong welcomed the group to a sunset debate at his rooftop studio on Aberdeen Island. The evening encompassed discussions around the strength of art works, the differences in life style, attitude and methods between artists and designers as well as the potentials, challenges and illusions around “artivism”, local real estate values and the philosophy of Hong Kong’s black kites who can easily be admired from Wong’s terrace. All photos by Florian Geisseler.

A conversation with Ian Woo, painter and program lead of MA Fine Arts at LASALLE College of the Arts in Singapore, based on his lecture for the TC participants.  THE MYSTERIOUS IN THE ABSTRACT Ian, the last slide you showed in your lecture was Saint-Exupéry’s elephant eaten by a boa constrictor. Was it meant as a metaphor for your artistic practice? The elephant in the snake represents a possibility for the evolution of physical shape. By eating the elephant, the snake has become a dinosaur. This, to me, shows one of many possibilities of transformation that we can dream about. As artists, we play with contradictions and with the „what if“. Your lecture was titled „Streaming the Trace“. What’s your notion of trace and streaming? Streaming generally designates the electronic transportation of information. But if we think of it rather in relation to a person’s body and mind, it speaks about how we cannot help but behave in an interplay with the space that we are in. In a fast urban space like Hong Kong’s …

How precarious are the human and organic bodies in the concrete body of the city? How does the human scale still apply in a metropolis of the 21st century? What kind of strategies are developed by individuals to move through its tireless traffic and large-scale infrastructure? And what are the correlations between anonymity and density? All photos by Florian Geisseler.

The group’s second week in Hong Kong coincided with the annual Fire Dragon Dance in the neighbourhood of Tai Hang. Legend has it that the ritual expels ghosts and afflictions. All photos by Florian Geisseler.

“I am like a blind man here”, Wang told me with half a smile on the first day of the program in Zurich, when I sat down next to him. He was referring to the language barriers being a challenge to finding one’s way around in an unfamiliar place. Despite Hong Kong’s sophistication in regards to urban design and management of the huge number of people navigating through the city day by day (with the MTR connecting everyone in a speed and efficiency that leave Zurich’s chugging tramways far behind) I can relate to his experience much better since we’ve arrived at Victoria Harbour.

On September 16, while we patiently waited inside for the black rain and violent winds of typhoon Mangkhut to pass – talking, cooking, painting and unpacking instruments all day – many of Hong Kong’s buildings, roads and trees faced severe destruction. The authorities had issued Hurricane Signal 10 for this strongest of this year’s tropical cyclones. Many of us had never experienced a storm of such force. All photos by Florian Geisseler.

This exhibition expresses the different perspectives on loneliness, a feeling, which could be accepted or rejected, that one could feel forced into or could choose. While it is often evoked in solitude, it can also arise even when someone is amongst others: a city like Hong Kong, in all its density and bustle can amplify this feeling.

Reference: http://www.jodsc.com/pages/1502434/page_201712171453

On the process We started our project to integrate ourselves into Hong Kong so that finding identity in this strange city, balancing between our “ego” and “self”. For the first step of the journey, we presented our results, as parasites inhabiting the “TOURIST”. Now our journey is still under way. Our work process goes through the following phases. We experience HK first and discover our interests in city. After that, we take a step back and observe ourselves as well as what we have experienced, what we have felt and how we have changed our thoughts. Finally set a topic and make it into an art work. During the second step of the journey, the biggest interests that attracted our attentions were “imported things” from Korea and Japan to HK. You can easily see Korean or Japanese products everywhere in HK, even both languages can be seen on some the advertisements. After discovering these of our interest, we started to collect related information, visited some museums, and interviewed traders. Though, when we look back at …