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Autumn 2023
Exhibition : September - November 
Homeland in Transit : Artists from Hong Kong, Taipei, and the Diaspora 

 

poster freiburg.jpg
2023

PF25 cultural projects : 2023 Programme

Exhibition
Homeland in Transit
Artists from Hong Kong, Taipei, and the Diaspora

Vernissage: 14 September 2023
Freiburg im Breisgau, DE

PROGRAMME

Vernissage
Thu 14.9.2023 | 19h | Foyer

With a performance by Hedy Leung

Nocturne
Fri 15.9. | open until 22h
Tour through Freiburger Kunsträume
19h Thematic Tour 'Von Teufeln und Dämonen'


Screening Queer Squad
Tue 26.9.2023 | 19h | Kammertheater
Short Films Sinophone Queer / Feminist Activism selected and presented by Queer Squad


Screening Hong Kong
Thu 26.10.2023 | 19h | Kammertheater
Short Films from Hong Kong selected and presented by Angelika Li


Das Extra: Ikebana Community
Sat 28.10.2023 | 14:30 – ca. 17:30 | Fotoecke Bildhauerhalle
Ikebana Community Workshop with Hedy Leung


Symposium
Sat 4.11.2023 |  0900 – 19:00 | E-Werk Saal

Thematic Exhibition Tours
Fri 15.9. | 19 h | Nocturne. Von Teufeln und Dämonen | Tour in German
Thu 12.10. | 19h | Home is where your heart is? | Tour in English
Sun 5.11. | 16h | Spurensuche nach den Wunden der Stadt | Tour in German
Meeting point: Galerie 1



EXHIBITION

Hedy Leung
Performance


Isaac Chong Wai, Traces in Silence
Solo Presentation, Galerie I


Winnie Soon, Unerasable Characters II, (2017 - 2020)
Custom-software installation, Galerie II


Oscar Chan Yik Long, A Horror to the Eyes of all Men Seeking Faith
Site-specific installation, Galerie II


Leung Chi Wo, Only Time Can Tell, 2010
Installation, Galerie II


Anson Mak, The Black Wall, 2022
Super 8 film/video, colour, stereo, Galerie II


Angela Su, The Afterlife of Rosy Leavers, 2017
Video, Galerie II


Musquiqui Chihying, The Camera (16), 2016
Video , Galerie II



ARTISTS


Hedy Leung
Leung has a holistic approach to the balance of energies between human and nature. In her everyday practice, she explores the healing and revitalizing powers of sound, plants, and sogetsu ikebana.


Isaac Chong Wai
The political and performative qualities of Chong’s artistic practice are incorporated by an interdisciplinary approach, processing the exigency of societal shifts and global phenomena.


Winnie Soon
Soon is an artist coder and researcher interested in the cultural implications of digital infrastructure that addresses wider power asymmetries.


Oscar Chan Yik Long
Chan’s artistic practice focuses on personal experience and explores the conditions of life, how individuals associate themselves with others, fear, mythologies and popular visual culture.


Leung Chi Wo
As a visual artist, Leung combines historical explorations with conceptual investigations in a modern urban setting.


Anson Mak
Moving image and sound artist Anson Mak is interested in urban redevelopment, queer culture and well-being in the forms of experimental ethnography and essay film.


Angela Su
Su explores perception and imagery of the body through metamorphosis, hybridity and transformation. Her research-based projects materialize in drawings, videos, hair embroidery, performative and installation works.


Musquiqui Chihying
The filmmaker and multimedia artist Musquiqui Chihying explores the cultural and social identities constructed through the flow and circulation of audiovisual elements.

 

HOMELAND IN TRANSIT
Homeland in Transit is a series of exhibitions by Angelika Li. Through her move from Hong Kong to Basel in 2017, Li began to explore the complex and changing nature of „homeland“. The exhibition series explores different narratives and aspects of „homeland“: with borders, history, memory, cultural identity, diaspora, displacement and beyond.


OPENING HOURS
Thu-Fri 17-20h
Sat 14-20h
Sun 14-18h


ADDRESS
E-WERK Freiburg, Galerie für Gegenwartskunst
Eschholzstrasse 77, 79106 Freiburg im Breisgau, DE


CONTACT
Telephone : 07 61 20 75 70
E-Mail : ewerk@ewerk-freiburg.de


HOW TO GET THERE
E-WERK Freiburg
By Bus 14 and 26, Stop 'Ferdinand-Weiß-Straße'
By Car take A5 towards Freiburg Mitte, Exit 'Stühlinger', left at Eschholzstraße.
(Limited parking, entrance at Ferdinand-Weiß-Straße.)


image: Anson Mak, The Black Wall, 2022, film still, (c) courtesy the artist.

Aug 2023

Residency, Community, Exhibition
Luke Ching in collaboration with Mei Cheung
August 2023
Basel

ON THE GROUND

 

The act of embarking on a journey involves slowly distancing oneself from the familiar environment and transforming into a stranger in a new place. This process is essential in evoking one's sense of place and sharpening one's sensibilities and power of observation, as well as recalling the natural desire to communicate with people upon first encounter. By taking advantage of the benefits that come with a break from daily routines, ‘On the Ground’ showcases Luke Ching's ongoing projects and collaborations with Mei Cheung during their one-month PF25 residency in Basel.

 

Through a combination of videos, installations, and workshops, the exhibition explores the experiences of language, folk arts, urban weeds, and music that connect us to a place, whether it is the artists' hometown or the city they are about to get acquainted with. ‘On the Ground’ invites viewers to reflect on their own sense of place and the relationships they form with new environments, ultimately prompting a deeper understanding and appreciation of the communities and cultures that shape our world.

> Info Sheet

> Exhibition Part I Map

‘On the Ground’ Community Projects / Workshops 

 

(1) Secret Garden: Know the Weeds

 

Unattended, widespread, sometimes invisible but never disappeared, weeds quietlywitness the life of a place. Each place has its unique combination of weeds with thestories of people living in the neighborhood embedded in. By getting to know the weeds in a particular place, we can develop a sense of attachment to that place.

 

Derived from ‘Remember a Weed. Bid a Farewell’, a community art activity led by Luke Ching and Mei Cheung in Tai Po, Hong Kong in September 2022, the duo plans to introduce a selection of Hong Kong weeds to the people of Basel and engage them in a sculpture-making and installation process to learn about the unique weed combinations in Basel. Through this, they hope to create a connection between the two cities through the shared language of plants.

 

Interestingly enough, Bauhinia × blakeana, the flower emblem of Hong Kong, is in fact belonged to a genus named after the Bauhin brothers Gaspard and Johann, pioneering Swiss botanists in the 16 th century born and lived in Basel.

 

(2) Easy to Learn Cantonese: Farewell 再見

 

‘Easy to Learn Cantonese’ is an ongoing art project that was first conceived by Luke Ching during his artist-in-residency program at New York's P.S.1 in 1999. The project was later brought to Fukuoka Asian Arts Museum's artist-in-residence program in 2006, with Mei Cheung participating as the Cantonese tutor in both versions. Over the past twenty-four years, the project has attracted more than five hundred participants, and the artist finds it increasingly relevant today, especially given the recent wave of emigration from Hong Kong.

 

For this new version of the project, the artist will teach the word ‘Joy Gin’ (farewell) to new friends met during the residency. In Cantonese, the word ‘Joy Gin’ means "to meet again" and is especially poignant given the current circumstances. The class will conclude when each participant can pronounce the word perfectly, fully conveying its meaning. The learning process will be documented in a short film and screened alongside videos from the previous two versions, offering a glimpse into the evolution of the project over time.

 

(3) Folk Art Series: Cockroach 曱甴

 

Folk handicrafts are popular souvenirs to give when meeting someone for the first time. Luke Ching has developed a cockroach craft using modern urban materials since the 1990s. This unique folk art represents modern Hong Kong in a humorous way and has been introduced to people around the world through cockroach workshops in different cities such as Fukuoka, Manchester, Blackburn, Singapore, and Taipei. Ching will teach this skill to people in Basel by conducting masterclasses and workshops.

 

Human beings are the only animals in the world that intentionally create objects of fear for themselves. Despite being afraid of cockroaches himself, Luke Ching created them purely from his imagination. At the exhibition, a video titled ‘Panic Disorder’ will be screened, showing Ching's hands performing the cockroach-making process without holding any materials.

Residency, Research
Essa Lin

July 2023
Basel

REALSCAPES
When the Flowers and Weeds Bloom, Do We Walk On the Railway Tracks or Truck Loading Bay?


Between a decade-long practice in photo documentation of environments, studying landscapes, and recent practice in recreating daily living and working environments in the machine learning realm, 'Parallel Confluence' is Essa’s enquiry into human perception between reality and machine imaginations.


Through the residency at PF25 with partner institution Atelier Mondial, the research is based upon the context of Hong Kong and Basel.


In the gallery, a ‘Reality Test’ can be devised, where Essa invites the participants to measure their perception of real and generated environments whilst browsing all the images presented in the gallery space, thus enquire about their own understanding of machine learning visual characteristics, and level of recognition to their own cities. This level of recognition is highly subjective and would be dependent on one’s personal memories and experiences of geographical, cultural, biodiversity identification, practice in generative technologies, and more, thus is an experiment of our relationship with environments and the machine learning realm.

ESSA LIN

(b. 1993, Hong Kong, lives & works in Hong Kong)

Essa is trained in landscape architecture, mural painting and fashion design, thus her works integrate cross-disciplinary media in design to explore human relationship with generative nature. She works on agricultural and ecological planning in Northern New Territories and
research on Lantau Island where she lives and works. She is a graduate member of the Hong Kong Institute of Landscape Architects.

July 2023
Recent

Recent Activities

Bouie Choi 2023

Residency, Community Projects, Exhibition
Bouie Choi
May - June 2023
Basel

PROGRAMME
 
Stories Exchange Community Event : Bring a postcard and share your stories!
Wednesday, 31 May 2023
Doors open: 18h 
Sharing session by the artist: 19h
Venue: Nonnenweg 45, 4055 Basel

Solo Exhibition: We stay up late to behold the beauty of the stars
Tuesday, 13 June, 18 -21h
Venue: Pfeffergässlein 25, 4051 Basel, entrance at Nadelberg 33
Viewing by appointment only until 30 June

The above programme is supported by:
Hong Kong Arts Development Council, Christoph Merian Stiftung,
mobani GmbH, and Achtsamkeit Basel 

Event sponsor: Meow Kong

Programme curator : Angelika Li
Programme coordinator: Celine Ngai

 

Bouie Choi
(b. 1987, Hong Kong, lives & works in Hong Kong)
 
Bouie Choi grew up in Hong Kong, surrounded by high-rise buildings that shape the city's urban landscape. Through her paintings, she weaves together fragments of memory and collected stories to depict the co-existence of the visible and invisible, light and darkness, and the real and surreal. Bouie uses the force of urban imagery and light to create a manifestation of infinite borrowed space and time, bridging the gap between tangibles and intangibles. Recently, she has focused on using wood to explore the definition of freedom, employing multi-perspective and layers of time to deepen her state of mind.

After receiving her MA at Chelsea College of Art and Design in 2012, Choi started participating in community art and cross-media collaborations. Her unwavering commitment to painting is driven by a profound curiosity about how the environment and social values leave lasting impressions on individuals. Her works play with absurdity from different contexts, finding them carriers and bringing new meanings to texts, objects, and two-dimensional art. Choi also participates in community art programs and has formed an art collective with other Hong Kong artists named the "CHT. Art Project".

During Bouie's residency in Basel, we invite you to bring a postcard of your homeland to the community project on 31 May, where you can share your stories with us. This exchange will serve as part of the inspiration for Bouie's upcoming exhibition, entitled 'We stay up late to behold the beauty of the stars,' which opens in Basel on 13 June. Her exhibition seeks to capture the emotional resonance and complexity between the ‘interior and exterior’ worlds, the physical and metaphysical, and the multi-perspectives of ‘far and close’ oscillating between different times and dimensions.

Artist portrait by South Ho

Random Diaries

Exhibition
Hedy Leung
202200080026
Sogetsu Ikebana performance as part of 'Random Diaries'
June 2023
Zurich

installation photo: Tashi Brauen

Hedy Leung
202200080026

Performance Sogetsu Ikebana

Event: Saturday, 10 June 19.00-19.30

Venue: St Jakobstrasse 41, 8004 Zurich
Art Basel VIP Programme

Taking inspiration from other works in this exhibition and primarily based on her recent migration journey from Hong Kong to London, Hedy Leung has created a group of vessels entitled 202200080026 (2023), which embody diasporic sentiments. Adapted from the title format used in both her visual ikebana diary and personal journal, the artwork is aptly named as a record of her move from her homeland to a new destination.

 

The hand-built vessels are constructed - and protected - using packing materials including the sheer papers Hedy received from a logistics company as the first layer, while newsprint wrapping papers form the second layer. The final layer is strengthened with newspapers collected from an ikebana shop where she ordered materials from Japan. The artist then dyed the newspapers in the iconic colours of the Red-White-Blue bag to further imbue the artwork with the spirit of the journey. The packing materials are transformed into vessels of memories documenting her personal and emotional journeys.

 

In the Sogetsu Ikebana performance as part of the exhibition, Hedy interacts with the vessels and invites the audience to reflect on the essence of ikebana, which is to live in the moment. The vessels also serve as a reminder to cherish and appreciate the precious items and memories that we carry with us. Each layer of protection used in the construction of the vessels represents the care and importance given to those items that are most precious. 

 

Excerpted from the curatorial essay 'Random Diaries 2019-2023' by Angelika Li.

 

Exhibition
Random Diaries
Group exhibition of eight Hong Kong and Swiss artists
May - June 2023
Zurich

installation photo: Tashi Brauen

RANDOM DIARIES

Tashi Brauen  
Oscar Chan Yik Long  
Leung Chi Wo  
Hedy Leung  
Lo Lai Lai Natalie  
Andreas Marti  
Angela Su  
Wai Pong Yu  


Curated by Angelika Li 
Co-presented by Meow Kong and PF25 cultural projects


Vernissage
Saturday, 13 May 2023, 14-20h

Exhibition
16 May - 18 June 2023, Tue - Sat 11-19h
Sundays 11 & 18 June, 11-19h

Venue
Meow Kong, St Jakobstrasse 41, 8004 Zurich 
+41 79 264 90 00
 
About the project & this exhibition
> 'Homeland in Transit' site
> Curatorial Essay
 

photo: Centrik Isler

Demonstration
Sogetsu Ikebana by Hedy Leung
Kirschblütenfest, VitraHaus, Vitra Campus
Sunday, 2 April 2023, 15.30

Weil am Rhein
 

Workshop
Sogetsu Ikebana Spring Workshop by Hedy Leung
March 2023
Basel

 

Event
PF25 first meeting and event in Hong Kong
art space 1983, Kam Tin
January 2023
Hong Kong

Greetings
We wish you a healthy and energetic Year of the Rabbit!
February 2023
Hong Kong

 

contact
IMG_5355.PNG

Contact

connect@PF25.org
+41 61 209 9259

Pffefergässlein 25
4051 Basel
Switzerland

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