M+ Rover embarks on a creative journey to campuses and community spaces in Hong Kong

M+, the museum of visual culture of the West Kowloon Cultural District, has launched its first major school outreach programme, M+ Rover: Travelling Creative Studio. The pop-up exhibition and learning space materialised in the Sha Tin Town Hall Plaza today, where 150 participating students from 6 secondary schools shared their creative efforts with the public.

Between March and July 2016, M+ Rover, transformed from a 7.5 metre-long trailer, is visiting 45 schools and 11 community spaces, taking art and cultural experiences to different locations around the city.

“Inspired by the concept of a space expedition to a distant planet, M+ Rover aims to stimulate and foster creative thinking in young people. M+ Rover is an important project reflecting M+’s public mission and the future museum’s commitment to enriching the cultural life of Hong Kong,” said Doryun Chong, Acting Director of M+.

Designed by artist Kacey Wong, the tailor-made trailer has a cool metal exterior that mimics the look of a spaceship. In contrast, its warm interior comprises recycled wood taken from discarded pallets. “I want audiences to experience immersion in a cosy nest that resembles the belly of a whale. Through the use of recycled wood taken from discarded wooden pallets, I hope visitors will also reflect on humanity’s unbalanced relationship with natural resources in service of rapid urban development,” said Kacey Wong.

For 2016, M+ has commissioned two local artists – Tang Kwok Hin and Siu Wai Hang – to guide students through a participatory creative process. Tang and Siu will directly engage secondary students as co-producers of their works through art-making, role play, games, and discussion.

The first round of school workshops are led by Tang Kwok Hin. Inspired by Cantonese slang from different eras, Tang has devised 15 characters in scenarios characteristic of Hong Kong’s unique lifestyle, such as dai pai dong (traditional outdoor food stalls) waiter, sundry stall owner and fengshui master, and is inviting students to be co-creators of his installation “Look at You”. “By examining the slang that has emerged from modern communication tools and social media, I hope we can reflect on how language frames our perspective and habits, and get a better understanding of the lives of different generations,” said Tang Kwok Hin.

In the next round of workshops, artist Siu Wai Hang will invite students to acquire and preserve objects, ideas or incidents that might have disappeared in the next few decades, “I hope to examine with the students the identity, values and spirit of Hong Kong, and what it means to be living in this fast-paced and over-developed city,” said Siu Wai Hang.

Alongside school workshops, M+ Rover will visit community spaces around the city, giving students and artists the opportunity to talk to the public and share their creative experience. The spontaneous interaction and responses that result will become part of the evolving exhibition on M+ Rover, with contributions of all kinds, such as drawings, pictures, writing, and audio clips, added to the display as it tours to schools and communities across Hong Kong.

The rolling outreach programme will visit different schools each year, with M+ commissioning two artists from design, architecture, moving image, and other fields of visual arts to develop the workshops. Stella Fong, Lead Curator of Learning and Interpretation at M+, said, “We hope our unconventional museum learning experience would expand our younger generation’s horizons and encourage them to imagine the boundless possibilities of visual culture through collaborations with local artists. In the years leading to the museum’s opening, we will host various programmes to open up the museum’s resources for students, teachers and the public.”

For further details on M+ Rover community sessions, please refer to http://www.westkowloon.hk/en/mplusrover.

Remarks

About the Artists

Participating artist: Tang Kwok Hin

Mixed media artist Tang Kwok Hin received a Master of Fine Arts from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2008. He won first prize at the Hong Kong Contemporary Art Biennial Awards (2009) and received a grant from the Asian Cultural Council (2013). He participated in the 15th WRO Media Art Biennale, WRO Art Center (2013) and Hong Kong Contemporary Art Biennial Awards, Hong Kong Museum of Art (2009). His work has been exhibited at Ice Palace, United States; Osthaus Museum Hagen, Germany; Singapore Art Museum; Venice Arsenale, Italy; Hong Kong Museum of Art; and Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, Taiwan.

Participating artist: Siu Wai Hang

Photography artist Siu Wai Hang holds a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Creative Media from the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong. He earned his Master of Fine Arts from the Department of Fine Arts, Chinese University of Hong Kong. In 2014, he won the WYNG Masters Award. Since 2010, Siu has had two solo exhibitions: The Elusive, Lumenvisum (2015) and Metropolis Chlorophyll, K11 (2010). He has exhibited in a number of group shows, including: WYNG Masters Award Finalists Exhibition – GASP!, Hong Kong Polytechnic University (2014); Pingyao International Photography Festival 2013, Pingyao (2013); and Hong Kong Contemporary Art Awards 2012, Hong Kong Museum of Art (2013). He teaches at various art institutes and universities.

M+ Rover design: Kacey Wong

Kacey Wong studied architecture in Cornell University and received his Master of Fine Arts degree from Chelsea School of Art and Design and Doctor of Fine Arts Degree from Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. Wong curated many art exhibitions exploring issues of space and city: Home (1999), Personal Skyscraper (2000), City Space (2001) and Drift City (2001, 2002 and 2010), etc. Since 2000, he started hisDrift City photo series, in which he dressed up as a skyscraper, travelling between cities in search of a utopia, and published the album Drift City 10 Years (2010). His tricycle house project Wandering Homes was selected to represent Hong Kong at the Venice Architectural Biennale 2008. He received the Artist of the Year Award (2010), the Rising Artist Award and Award for Arts Education (2003) from the Hong Kong Arts Development Council.

Details of M+ Rover Community Sessions

Time: 10am to 5pm