信任&迷惑 trust & confusion - Tai Kwun

信任&迷惑 trust & confusion . . . . . . . . 五月至十二月逐步發生 Evolving from May to December 2021: Tarek Atoui, Celeste Burlina, Alice Chauchat, Mette Edvardsen, Claudia Fernández, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Maria Hassabi, 許思樂 Serene Hui, Ricky Jay, 北井一夫 Kazuo Kitai, Nile Koetting, Lina Lapelytė, Nicholas Mangan, 毛利悠子Yuko Mohri, 西村多美子 Tamiko Nishimura, 潘岱靜 Pan Daijing,

trust & confusion

“There is a chance you will find a secret garden” was the hint we offered you, dear visitor, a few

months ago. Since then, many things have changed dramatically while other things have

remained locked in their positions. What did we mean by “secret garden”? A temporary

autonomous zone, or your own way of traversing the exhibition, becoming an experience you carry

with you to other places. Perhaps: the ethereal body of works each of you had traversed in your

personal way, in the search of navigating an ever-changing unknown. At this stage, allow us

a brief moment to return to and reflect upon the original points of departure—some of them are still

valid, others need revision, yet others, omission. The original paragraphs are aligned to the left, while the responses today, 13th October, 2021,

are aligned on the opposite side

(as the secret garden is perhaps always in the middle?)

trust & confusion is about the conversation of certainty and chance; the transformative power of bodies, intangibles, and ephemeral encounters; music and magic; and the luck of being alive, with all the concerns that come with it, be they human or not. Evolving, accumulating, the exhibition unfolds over several episodes, on site and online, from now to the end of the year.

The end of the year is almost here! What has happened? It is but one more year among a variety of calendars, and yet 2021 will stay

in history as a year of hope, despair, and recovery on the planetary scale, distributed

very unevenly. A deeply transitional year.

trust & confusion turns the white cube space into a fluctuating environment that hosts activities and sensations; it transforms this space in favour of movements, interactions, and deep lis-tening for ears and bodies. A new relationship of you and I, along with new associations and experiences, shares this temporality. There are several visible performances taking place as you enter,

and several invisible ones, mostly new works from an intergen-erational, international, and cosmopolitan group of artists.

28 new commissions have been conceived and realised remotely.

First sketching out the contours of the exhibition in 2019, we imagined creating a ground for our community—polarised and exhausted by the turmoil of that year—to come together and rest. A new communal intimacy was called for: quieter, more playful, body-centred, and tactile, safe from abuse and diminishment, a healing space. A constellation of live works of art exploring the individual and collective body through conversations, games, gatherings, and imagination was conceived.

Which community are we speaking to at the end of 2021? Through the months of this long proj-

ect, we have worked with over 200 dancers and interpreters for live works of artists: Alice Chauchat, Mette Edvardsen, Serene Hui, Nile Koetting, Pan Daiijng, Tino Sehgal, Sriwhana

Spong, Scarlet Yu and Xavier Le Roy. The number of conversations and relations multiplied with

this group of “mediators’’. The number of people who immersed themselves in the experience of contemporary art for the first time in their lives

was overwhelming (for some of the artworks too).

Suddenly, as if out of nowhere, the pandemic swept in and every-thing was re-adapted for a situation even more solitary and vul-nerable. Next came the epiphany that what had ensued was not just a global crisis: life itself has changed, numbingly quickly—like watching time-acceleration videos depicting 6 billion years of evolution in 6 minutes. Life was made a subject of rules more numerous and ever-changing than most of us can remember, while our daily environment threw up new protocols through which most of us will keep navigating. Our adaptability has con-tinued evolving since. Indeed, this project has entailed constant reactions, multiple modifications, untold scenarios—which a vast multitude of people have similarly faced in their own fields, expecting the advent of a transition, a rupture. We trust in a more embracing world to come, as we trust in that alignment of chance, intentions, and effort in the striving for the better.

Yes, we still do, with thicker skin.

However confused we may at times feel, we trust that we will arrive at a safer place. This feeling keeps us very much alive. No point in speaking of either certainty or absolute chance, as the surface that a dice falls onto is never perfectly smooth or straight, nor is the dice itself. In our case, “trust” and “con-fusion” have joined the journey as companions rather than as opposites: like sweet and sour in taste, like inhaling and exhaling, like dance movements, like fleeting, impermanent conditions. At this point of the journey we do not know if the last episode of the project will take place as conceived;

Believe it or not—the last episode is nearly upon us. The order of things underwent

changes, like the throwing of the dice. And the biggest challenges of producing a “live”

project like this was working with the living and with their everyday concerns of life.

The transformative power of everyday practices remains at the centre of what we can do together at this stage, and for that matter at any moment of life: looking with the artists, collecting, repurposing, betting, recasting, playing, wondering, and real-ising. Our conversations with artists immersed in their studios in different corners of the world have generated tools for us to understand the surroundings, the non-binary realities, as the more pertinent truths lying in ambivalence and complexity.

The exhibition is an invitation to observe how things emerge in relation to each other—sounds, gestures, smells, identities—and to be a part of it, being surprised and giving attention to your inner landscape while a spectacle is taking place around you. An invitation to a most sentimental belief: to trust that the hands and arms you decide to fall into will hold and sustain you.

Keep falling....,,,, . . . . ; : : :.., , . ,,, . . . . . : . . . ; ; ; ; ,,, . ... ‘‘‘ .. .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... ; . . . .. . . ... ... . . . ,., .,., , . ,,, . ,., . ,. ,. . ,,, . , ., . , . ,. . , . . . . ; ; ; . ,. . ; ;; ; ‘. ..... . ., .. .. .... .. . .... .. ‘‘‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ; ; ; ; ; . . . . . . . . ; ; ; . ,. . ; ;; ., .. .. .. . . . . . . . . . . . .... ; . . . .. . . ... ... . . . ,., .,., , . ; ,. ,,, ; ;;; ; ;; ;. ,,,, . ,., . ,. ,. . , ,, ; . . . .. ,., . ,. , ; . ; ‘. ..... . ., .. .. .. . . . . . . . . . . . .... ; . . . .. . . ... ... . . . ,., .,., , . ,,, . ,., . ,. ,. . , ,, ; . . . .. ,., . ,. , ; . . . .. . . . ,., .,., , . ., .. .. .. . . . . . . . . . . . .... ; . . . .. . . ... ... ...,.,

. ,., . ,. ,. . , ““ ,,’’’’ ; . . .. ,., . ,. , ; .,,,. ,. ,, ,., . ,. , . ,. ,. . , . . . . . . .,,,, : : : : : ;; ,, ; . ,,, . ,., . ,. ,. . , ,, ; . . . .. ,., . ,. , ; . ; ‘. ..... . ., .. .. .. . . . . . . . . . . . .... ; . . . .. . . ... ... . . . ,., .,., , . ,,, . ,., . ,. ,. . , ,, ; . . . .. ,., . ,. , ; . . . .. . . . ,., .,., , . ., .. .. .. . . . . . . . . . . . .... ; . . . .. . . ... ... ...,., ; . . ,., . ,. , . . . . . . . ,., .,., , . ,,,. . ... . ; ‘. ..... . ., .. .. .... .. . .... . . , ., . , . ,. ., .. .. .. . . . . . . As you move along, there is a chance that you might be caught by the sounds of birds and humans conversing, two or three life retrospectives of previously unpublished photographic works, a short splash of dance, a person’s posture reminis-cent of a public sculpture in Hong Kong, melodies sung by a chorus of tone-deaf singers, a sound sculpture morphing into a theatre prop, a molecule striking a new olfactory possibility, an open rehearsal in public, foam mattresses transmitting the sound of one’s favorite radio, a tree so obsessively protected that it is nowhere to be seen, a visual letter speaking of virtual existence and climate change, among others.

Observing nature’s cycles and the importance of rituals, which anchor our beings and ancestries, the exhibition space is devised in the alignment of day and night, with a brief sunset room in between. Whereas artworks would grow and evolve in the day room, a solo or duo presentation would debut in the night room for each episode. Changes would take place after each full moon, when the tides are the deepest and the forest the noisiest. Some artists’ contributions will remain for months but in fresh configurations; others will appear in changing roles throughout time. As tribute to the bare human voice as a most vibrant and direct form of communication, a weekly release of voices by artists, writers, poets, and choreographers is made available on www.trusting.hk, where you also find the calendar of the moon to guide you through the coming episodes.

Xue Tan and Raimundas Malašauskas

Can writing be an indication of something to come? The follow-ing texts were composed with the thoughts, ideas, and forms hovering in the flickering expanse of networks, between glitch and flow, constraint and excitement, confinement and reverie, the waking and dozing of time zones. The writing records stories from home or encounters had on the way to the studio; at times, it registers a mediated voice breaching the restricted airflow of a distant hotel room.

More than concocting stable forms, this writing lingers with the circumstances of its emergence. It spans the moment when most of the artist contributions were still in the midst of becoming: flying and suspended mid-air, welded in Chinese workshops, pencilled on notebook paper, or sampled and splintered in direct messages. And yet through such assorted mediation, unexpected possibilities opened up of being there and being with. Snapshots, text messages, and telecommunications all taking part in the shattered sense-making which conditions sustained conver-sations. At this point, when a work becomes where the artist is not, a new language forms and turns into a way of holding things together, reaching out, and collaborating: a fervent embrace between the not-readily-here and the not-yet-there.

Tom Engels

Tarek Atoui . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Whisperers, Whispers from Waters’ Witness (2021)By way of electroacoustic composition and instrument engi-neering, the work of Tarek Atoui (b. 1980, Lebanon; lives in Paris) is propelled by the sounds the world makes and by how sounds make different worlds in return. A fervent inventor of new modes of listening, Atoui sets out environments in which original instruments and multifaceted arrangements actively question the ways one perceives, feels, and thinks about sound.

Inspired by his experience shuffling vinyl while roaming record shops, Whisperers (2021) brings together a series of listening devices that function through translation. Atoui invites the visitor to plug their own music devices into the players and see, feel, and hear them transmitted through assemblages of materials that include copper, cloth, wood, iron, and polyurethane. Every single device calls up a different kind of translation and calls for another form of interaction: a piece of cloth slowly brushes a cymbal; a piano string transports sound waves from the cymbal to the headphone; a hi-hat pedal can be struck. By prompting visitors to bring familiar songs, Atoui generates a situation where these familiar tracks can be heard afresh. Like vinyl records, reel tapes, or cassettes, these newly made sound transmitters have over- and underheard layers of noises, hisses, and hums that are induced by their imperfections and materialities.

Outdoors, in the Prison Yard, the visitor is invited to listen anew in Whispers from Waters’ Witness). Initially created for Atoui’s Waters’ Witness project, these composite metallic structures were inspired by the recording of Abu Dhabi’s waterfronts and the sound inside metal rails crackling under the sun at one of its harbours. Here, these structures become terminals for broadcast-ing sound, offering audiences the possibility to sit, touch, and lay on the sound being played through them. In so doing, Atoui reveals that sounding and meaning are always a cooperation between human and more-than-human bodies.

New commissions by Tai Kwun Contemporary

Celeste Burlina . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Liminoid (2021)The scenographer and engineer Celeste Burlina (b. 1988, Italy; lives in Berlin) presents a multifaceted seating and stage instal-lation that lies somewhere between bleachers, a raised platform, playground, and panoramic lookout. With three interconnected levels, the installation draws upon myriad architectural refer-ences that facilitate leisure, contemplation, hierarchy, and spectatorship—with inspiration from traditional Sri Lankan stupa architecture, and hints of courtrooms, palaces, public squares, and parks. A fourth hidden space, accessible from one side of the structure, provides space for an installation by the artist Lina Lapelytė.

The Liminoid posits a liminal understanding of space. Derived from the Latin limen (“threshold”), the liminal is an anthropo-logical term describing a zone of transition from one stage of life to another. At the liminal moment, people abandon their previous conceptions of identity, community, and time, and move towards structuring them anew. Whether drawing from judicial or imperial architectural references or from structures that organise recreation and conviviality in public spaces, The Liminoid offers an ambiguous in-between. Neoprene padding, sand coating, and metal grids, both inviting and stringent, alter-nate with each other in a material paradox. The original asso-ciations related to The Liminoid’s structural components and materials are redirected and repurposed, and their re-assembly opens up the possibility to think open-mindedly of space. As architecture only gains meaning on account of the people and their practices that inhabit it, The Liminoid forms the interface for lodging and dwelling, for congregation and solitude. At times where the distinctions between desire and control, or pleasure and regimen, are strained, The Liminoid invites the visitor to playfully reconsider these principles once more.

New commission by Tai Kwun Contemporary

Alice Chauchat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Unison, as a Matter of Fact (trust & confusion) (2021)With Unison, as a Matter of Fact (trust & confusion), the choreo-grapher Alice Chauchat (b. 1977, France; lives in Berlin) presents a score that draws attention to an activity shared by all living things: breathing. Working with movement, perception, atten-tion, and their interwoven choreographic potential, Chauchat invites the visitor to tune into one’s breath and the collective breathing in the space.

The task, written down on a card and passed to the visitor by a docent, contains a formula that, when activated, reveals an incessant choir of breaths. Written like an aphorism, the text and the attentive practice it suggests renders palpable and perceptible a layer of movement commonly unnoticed or over-looked. By way of practice, focus, and dedication, a previously unconscious choreography unfolds. As such, Unison, as a Matter of Fact (trust & confusion) evolves and becomes visible and tan-gible as a conscious doing and activity. A renewed awareness of what is individual and what is shared leads to a microscopics of presence and being in relation: how an inhale expands and an exhale contracts the thorax, how rhythms congregate and differ, how my breathing affects yours, how flows of oxygen and carbon dioxide dance in space, and how they move into, through, and out of different bodies. As one explores the fluc-tuating relationship between one’s movements and those of others, sameness comes and goes, and synchronicity is attained and undone. At a moment of shared attention and embodiment, breathing is revealed as a wondrous multiplicity of movement, event, and action that, in their differences, falls in and out of unison, towards a common breath.

New commission by Tai Kwun ContemporaryThis work was live from 1 May to 31 August

Mette Edvardsen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine (2010–ongoing )For more than a decade now, Time has fallen asleep in the after-noon sunshine, a project initiated by the choreographer Mette Edvardsen (b. 1970, Norway; lives in Oslo), continues to gather a group of people who have decided to learn a book of their choice by heart. Together, they form a collection of “living books”, to be consulted by visitors—or “readers”, if you like. Upon request, the “living book” guides the reader to a comfortable place within Tai Kwun Contemporary and recites the book to the reader from memory. In this intimate one-on-one encounter, literature is passed on in its most rudimentary but equally disarming form—via the voice and the ear, without a material support.

The title Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine directly quotes a line in Ray Bradbury’s science fiction novel Fahrenheit 451, with its dystopian world where the possession of books is forbidden: as books are systematically burned by the powers that be, the only way to preserve them is learning them by heart. Given that memory and forgetting are bound to each other, the “living books” must keep on practising to keep their memory alive. Only then, by submitting to this studious practice, can this embodied form of literature keep flourishing as a humble and wondrous act of shared listening, imagining, and world-making. As such, the project proposes a dedicated and slow-paced prac-tice to a life often driven by efficiency, functionality, and speed.

Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine currently hosts more than 100 “living books” in 20 different languages. As the project travels to museums, libraries, theatres, and other spaces across the globe, its collection proceeds to grow over time. On the occasion of trust & confusion four new books are added to the collection, including: The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde, If This Is a Man by Primo Levi, Dubliners by James Joyce and A Woman Like Me by Xi Xi.

Courtesy of the artistThis work was live from 1 May to 31 August

Claudia Fernández . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Constellation (2015)The Mexican artist Claudia Fernández (b. 1965; lives in Mérida) is a fervent collector who examines the processes of assimila-tion and the migration of forms, with particular attention to the artisanal and to craftsmanship. By scrutinising the histories of everyday Mexican objects, her propositions lay bare the intri-cate narratives that give shape to such objects and how these very objects come to express a worldview of their own. Here, Constellation presents a collection of approximately 50 lanterns made of pleated and hand-painted paper, which Fernández has been amassing for many years. As part of the traditional festivities during the Christmas season, the lanterns, originally associated with the Chinese lantern, entered Mexico by way of trade and migration. During the 17th and 18th centuries, the import of this new visual language occurred as part of a much wider exchange of goods, including fabrics, porcelain, and spices, through the trans-Pacific galleon route between Manila (the Philippines) and Acapulco (Mexico), at the time both under Spanish rule.

By way of assimilation, the Chinese calligraphy on the lanterns was pared away over time, and their cultural function repur-posed. The collection presented in Constellation is of a much later date; the earliest of these lanterns date back to the 1950s and 1970s. The work is a testament to the slow disappearance of the craft of handmade lanterns in Mexico and, in parallel, of the custom of street festivities with chanting and pleasure spilling out onto heavily decorated streets. Here, they have travelled back to the continent that sparked their existence and subtly invoke the many hands they were touched by as well as the myriad voices, hope, and collective joy they have witnessed. Gathered in a contemplative fashion, they mes-merisingly approximate the true meaning of “constellation”: “a collection of stars”.

During the first six weeks of trust & confusion, the lanterns floated above the performers of Still in Hong Kong by Scarlet Yu and Xavier Le Roy; when the performance ended, Constellation theatrically descended to the visitor’s body level.

Courtesy of the artistThis work was exhibited from 1 May to 1 September

Felix Gonzalez-Torres . . . . . . . . . . . . “Untitled” (North) (1993)By using ordinary materials including candies, mirrors, clocks, or stacks of paper, the Cuban-American conceptual artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres (1957–1996), like no other, embraced fragility, transformation, and the passing of time as fundamental forces of life and work like no other. Moving between sculpture, instal-lation, video, and photography, his works are known for their touching meditations on love, friendship, and loss. González-Torres’s metaphorical propositions are deeply rooted in the effects of the raging AIDS pandemic during the 1980s and 1990s, as the works also speak of his intimate relationship with his partner Ross Laycock. Haunted by his partner’s death in 1991, he continued to produce work from a place of personal and collective mourning, until González-Torres died at the age of 39, also of AIDS–related complications. As such, his works offer a poetic account, weaving together personal life and the reality of the AIDS pandemic.

“Untitled” (North) is a larger work from Gonzalez-Torres’s light strings series. Consisting of 12 strings and hung from the ceiling during the first episode of trust & confusion, “Untitled” (North) suggests an image that one associates with festivities, collec-tive joy, and the vibrancy of life. As a counter-image, the work slowly starts to invoke the fragility of life and its impending end, as some of the delicate bulbs gradually burn out at unforeseen moments over the duration of the exhibition.

By extending the possibility of replacing the broken bulbs, Gonzalez-Torres puts forward a sign of hope and regeneration, too. As he was keen to entrust the open-ended transformation of his work to its owners and installers, here, “Untitled” (North) will periodically be re-installed in different configurations throughout the duration of trust & confusion. In this way, Gonzalez-Torres invites us stirringly—however confusingly—to trust the unknown.

Marieluise Hessel Collection, Hessel Museum of Art, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York © Felix Gonzalez-Torres, courtesy of the Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation

This work was exhibited from 1 May to 6 September

Maria Hassabi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .VMini-Retrospective (a sheet of paper) (2021)The work of the artist and choreographer Maria Hassabi (b. 1973, Cyprus; lives in New York and Athens) unfolds in the stretch between the choreographic and the sculptural. Hassabi chal-lenges received notions of movement and stillness in her prac-tice while affirming their inextricable bonds. Appearing both in theatrical and visual art contexts, her performances and instal-lations are engendered by dancers in varying constellations, ranging from solo to the group, and respond to the architec-tural frameworks and usages of space they imply. Time after time, her work questions and challenges the apparatuses they are presented by and the ways spectatorship and attendance manifest within them.

Hassabi’s works frequently generate moments of apparent stillness, disrupting the accustomed flow of things. Testing the limits of deceleration, her works propose images and states that hover between abstraction and figuration—slow stretches and bends morph and twist the body from a recognisable posture into a bleary, distorted figure. Likewise, Hassabi adamantly claims that space in between where the unrecognisable and the intangible transition and blend into the mundaneness of daily life gestures, movements, and postures. Unexpectedly, the decel-eration of movements and the meditative quality they propose also afford moments of unbridled intensity and radiant glows of unfiltered empathy. On the occasion of trust & confusion, the visitor is offered a retrospective of Hassabi’s work by way of a collection of pictures on a single sheet of paper—an oeuvre in glimpses, a body of work cradled in one’s hand.


Serene Hui . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rehearsal for Disaster— The Explosion, Rehearsal forDisaster—The Siren (2021)Interested in undoing the binaries that structure life, the artist Serene Hui (b. 1992, Hong Kong; lives in The Hague) proposes Rehearsal for Disaster—The Explosion, a participatory live action, and Rehearsal for Disaster—The Siren, a live performance; both are rooted in her long-standing research on individual and collec-tive mourning. The two works are activated on the first Saturday of every month. In Rehearsal for Disaster—The Explosion, a docent keeps on inflating balloons—one of the most symbolic elements of a party or celebration—until they pop. Upon request, the visitor receives a balloon with a question printed on top and is asked to carry it with them throughout the duration of their visit. On returning the balloon, a shared moment of poking takes place and a surprise reveals itself. Memories of celebratory moments blend in with small punctual explosions ricocheting through the space. Evocative of the sound of fireworks and blasts heard in protests, the piece conjures up an eerie atmosphere that hovers between celebrating in safety, latent memories of upheaval, and questions literally carried through the space.

Performed at 4:30 pm on the first Saturday of the month, Rehearsal for Disaster—The Siren, inspired by the monthly tests of a siren that purportedly drills the Dutch populace in the event of imminent peril, stages a actor/theatre artist who embodies the sound of a siren. By mimicking this wailing sound, Hui seeks to undo the boundaries drawn between human and machine, and raises questions about the embodiment and internalisation of instruments of control and danger. Whether far or near, the siren’s voice pervades the space and triggers personal relations with danger and war, memory and the future. More than ques-tioning whether an art institution could be considered a safe place or a temporary shelter, Hui suggests that the learning by heart of the siren’s music is a prefigurative and restorative way to prepare oneself for another crisis to come.


Ricky Jay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Decaying Dice (date unknown)Throughout the history of humanity, dice have been entrusted with the capacity to tell fortune, decide on a game’s course, serve as the protagonist of gambling, and make life-changing decisions. If there is no way or desire to decide, the dice will show the way. As part of trust & confusion, two sets of dice are presented from the collection of the American magician Rick Jay (1946–2018, United States). A professional trickster, Jay appeared in many guises—from a show host on Broadway in New York, to a star in a TV series like HBO’s Deadwood and Hollywood films such as Magnolia, or as a professional con-sultant for special effects—all under one motto: that magic is the oldest form of art. The cinematographer Caleb Deschanel remembers his work thus: “His magic is like great storytelling that brings life and reality to the level of myth. You don’t feel it’s a trick well done. You feel he is operating on another level that goes to the core of human instinct.”

Jay’s collection encompasses thousands of dice, many of them in the midst of decomposition. Often weighted, or adapted for cheating, these cellulose nitrate dice are also subject to their own fate. Because of their material nature, these game-chang-ers now show advanced stages of transformation themselves, as they slowly disappear in the light of day or crack and crum-ble into another form of life. Ricky Jay’s dice, here integrated into the architecture of the space, become trust & confusion’s talismans of sorts as they incite the continuous reshuffling of the exhibition—an indeterminate journey within a finite set of possibilities under the auspices of some items of “rotten luck”.

Courtesy of the Ricky Jay Collection

Kazuo Kitai . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Pictures from My Cabinet of Memories (1960s–now) The Japanese photographer Kazuo Kitai (b. 1944, China; lives in Tokyo) has been compiling an extraordinary collection of photographs that chronicle the transformations in Japanese society since the 1960s. Over six decades, Kitai helped give voice to those unheard amidst post-war political struggles and those so often unseen. In trust & confusion, Kitai’s works are presented as a two-screen projection, bringing together his memoir along with published and unpublished photographs since the beginning of his career.

Starting in the 1960s, his first photographic endeavours took shape with blurry, rebellious snapshots recounting the student protest against the entry of American nuclear submarines; as such, they are a testament to the anti-establishment movements of the time. A remarkable continuation was witnessed in his more solemn photographs documenting the Sanrizuka Struggle by farmers who opposed the construction of the Narita airport in the early 1970s. Unlike his peers in the Japanese photography world—most of whom worked around the subjects of metropol-itan and urban life in Japan—Kitai opted to capture the spirit of a slowly disappearing rural life.

In view of his personal life trajectory in China, his birthplace, Kitai visited Beijing in the 1970s and 1990s and Anshan during the 2010s, shooting with the contemplative dimensions of a wide-angle lens. The photographs shed light on his relationship with the country and his attempt to retrieve what he calls “a lost childhood experience”.

Later, delving into the concern of what constitutes a home, Kitai for five years documented the development of Funabashi district and its inhabitants in the 1980s. This commuter town’s run-of-the-mill public housing complexes served as temporary homes for young families before they moved to stand-alone houses, and this in-between state of life was put into photographic form by Kitai. The recent photographs in the retrospective highlight Kitai’s walking body leading the way: images from up close, shot on daily walks, detailed as never before, and out on the open road.


Nile Koetting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Remain Calm (Mobile +) , Remain Calm (Air 氣) (2021)For the artist Nile Koetting (b. 1989, Japan; lives in Berlin and Tokyo), installation and scenography only live by dint of their inhabitation by performers and visitors. Through hybrid environments that host audio, video, performance, Koetting’s work reflects the mutual responsiveness between the human body and technology in the digital age. This project unfolds in two episodes: Remain Calm (Mobile +) from 1 May to 31 August in the Day Room and Remain Calm (Air 氣) from 11 September to 10 October in the Night Room. The two installations pose questions about today’s increasing presence of security and monitoring technologies and their accom-panying choreographies. By contrasting video, light, sound, and performance, the two performance installations put safety and control mechanisms on centre stage. In Remain Calm (Air 氣), four video screens introduce the visitor to preferable modes of conduct and evacuation routes, and performers demonstrate a choreog-raphy inspired by the evacuation protocol of the museum, with their heart rate and health information being tracked on screen; an ikebana flower arrangement peacefully adorns the space, while a displayed performance schedule instructs them on how to get through the day—until another disaster hits. Together, this constel-lation offers what Koetting calls an “introspective scenography”: the objects, their placement, and arrangement enter into dialogue with the museum-goer’s mindset and embodiment, concocting a space for observation, reflection, and possibly action.

Koetting playfully interrogates the conditions under which people gather and move. Inspired by his training in Butoh, a Japanese dance form that sees the human body as just one agent within a vast network of environmental energies, Koetting looks at how environments and their objects hold within them a choreographic and performative potential—how they steer the way we see, think, move, and act. Therefore, the movements of individuals are intrin-sically bound to those of others, the institutions that harness them, and the mechanisms that control them. Koetting’s proposition directs the spectator towards one of today’s most pertinent ques-tions: who is moved by whom?

New commissions by Tai Kwun ContemporaryThe works were live from 1 May to 10 October

Lina Lapelytė . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Study of Slope (2021)Hidden away inside Celeste Burlina’s The Liminoid one can find Study of Slope (2021), an installation by Lina Lapelytė (b. 1984, Lithuania; lives in Vilnius and London), artist, composer, and recipient of the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale in 2019. Exploring the transformative powers of song, Study of Slope offers an environment that recalibrates the senses, both auditorily and spatially. In collaboration with a newly assembled group of tone-deaf people and the architect Mantas Petraitis (of Implant Architecture), Lapelytė presents a musical work that challenges the authoritative understanding of tonality and musicality in the Western musical tradition.

Being insensitive to musical pitch differences often thwarts joy-ful participation in musical activities: such voices are silenced, removed, or simply undone on their own. Generously opening up an unlikely musical spectrum, Lapelytė questions such stringent and exclusionary principles by putting non-conforming tone-deaf ears and voices on centre stage. The songs, based on the writings of Sean Ashton, Monika Kalinauskaitė, and the artist’s own, and accompanied by the saxophone, harp, and violin with John Butcher, Rhodri Davies, Angharad Davies, actively unmute an oft-unheard range of musicality—a rare feat by a traditionally trained composer. Resonating with such self-reflexive questions, the floor of Study of Slope is tilted, with a level bench thus aslant, while the visiter sits at an incline. Shoes with equally skewed soles playfully suggest an evening out on the tilted plane and draw attention to orthopedics as a tool and discipline to straighten the body. Teasing the listener with this disorienting intervention, Lapelytė’s spatial configuration accommodates a sensitivity for the atypical and a discovery of pleasure and comfort in the unbalanced. Listening, posture, and orientation are accentuated as mutually responsive principles that can temporarily suspend the straight, level, and upright organisation of the world. Study of Slope accordingly invites the visitor to throw off the narrow understanding of what constitutes (musical) reality, redirecting stern present-day principles to a renewed understanding of plea-sure, beauty, and freedom within the non-conventional.


Nicholas Mangan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Limits to Growth—Part 3 (Letter to Rai) (2020), Lasting Impressions (2021)Nicholas Mangan (b. 1979, Australia; lives in Melbourne) explores the relationships between technology, artistic production, and ecology, as well as their geopolitical implications. Mangan’s film series Limits to Growth started off in 2015 with an investi-gation into the exchange of economic value without physical transaction by way of cryptocurrency. Departing from a personal exchange with the curator Raimundas Malašauskas and pro-pelled by homophonic associations, the third part of the series, Limits to Growth—Part 3 (Letter to Rai) , takes the spectator on a dazzling journey that intertwines narratives of contemporary forms of resource extraction and value production with the his-torical backdrop of the century-old use of rai stones, or stone money, on the Yap islands in Micronesia. Mangan probes the paradox of virtual currency drawing so heavily on the Earth’s resources and tries to understand how these vast complexes of data, value, and extraction can inform an artistic practice.

Lasting Impressions, a constellation of dental cast made up of a mixture of crushed coral and other compounds, follows up on this concern with systemic ecocide. As the Great Barrier Reef transforms from one of the largest living organisms to one of the largest dying organisms on Earth due to global warming, Mangan interrogates the literal and metaphorical relations between the human mouth, consumption, and destruction. Sharing calcium as their main substance, the damage to both coral and teeth are caused by sugar: sugar causes cavities in tooth enamel and induces coral bleaching in the Coral Sea, insofar as Australian sugar production yields damaging run-offs. Petrified and dis-played in a polystyrene box like seafood, the coral dental moulds are deafeningly silent as they echo the political inertia that turns a blind eye on a catastrophe of human making.


Yuko Mohri . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Decomposition, Copula (2021)The artist Yuko Mohri (b. 1980, Japan; lives in Tokyo) shapes complex systems held together by intangible energies such as sound, light, or gravity. Her sonic sculpture Decomposition uses a constellation of apples—for Mohri, the most iconic type of fruit—as its audio source. Tapping into the fluctuating resistance caused by the water in the apple, Mohri sets up a composition generated by the apples, which is translated by a synthesiser into an unstable harmony. Winking at the history of still-life painting, Mohri suggests a sounding image that questions the relation between stillness and liveness, and reveals that what might seem to be without life is actually full of it. As the apples dry over time, the apples’ resistance to transmissibility grows, and consequently the pitch of the composition rises. Starting with a set of three apples, Mohri creates an open-ended sculp-ture as she leaves open the playful possibility that the curators replace them with other pieces of fruit, not knowing how a grape or banana might add to the harmony. Responding moreover to the inability to travel during a pandemic, Mohri’s configuration is easily made with locally sourced materials. Unintentionally, the apple turns out to be an imported product in Hong Kong—disclosing yet another system of travel, as objects continue to travel when human bodies cannot.

The interconnectedness of things is further explored in Copula, an installation consisting of seemingly disparate elements such as metal pipes, a bike wheel, light bulbs, and a spoon. The motor of the installation, the system’s beating heart, sets those parts in motion. Guided by magnetic pulls and their consecutive release, elements float and dangle, in search for each other’s touch. And when they do, much like humans, they conduct energy and light up.


Tamiko Nishimura . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .My Journey (1960s–now)

Throughout her life, the photographer Tamiko Nishimura (b. 1948, Japan; lives in Tokyo) has been drawn to the transfor-mational powers of performance, travelling, and nomadic life. Spanning the years between 1968 and now, this life retrospec-tive gives insight into Nishimura’s deeply delicate and personal practice: a life in photography.

Nishimura graduated with a series of photographs that show the backstage lives and times of Jōkyō Gekijo, or the Situation Theatre, one of the major Japanese alternative theatre groups led by Jūrō Kara. As the theatre was mobile, Nishimura docu-mented how the theatre is done and undone again, how tarps are raised and tribunes are built. Travelling, movement, and journey, both mental and physical, became a defining aspect in Nishimura’s work. Shikishima, her first professional publication from 1973, documents her journeys from 1969 to 1972 while travelling throughout various regions in Japan. Snapshots of train lines, the hustle and bustle of the metropolis, and rural landscapes alternate, with their haphazard and blurry character underpinning the sentiment and atmosphere of being on the road.

A later series combines Nishimura’s fascination with theatre and travel, as she follows Konohana sakuyahime, a Miko dancer, or a shrine maiden who performs a sacred performance dedicated to the Shinto gods. Between 1979 and 1981, Nishimura followed the dancer on a nationwide pilgrimage which she undertook together with her two children, and reveals the simplicity and mundaneness of her life beyond dance and sacred ritual. Since then, Nishimura repeatedly has followed and documented the lives of actors, poets, dancers, and musicians, such as the renowned Japanese conductor Naoto Ōtomo (1981–1983), the drummer Shonosuke Okura (1994–1995), and the poet Yasuki Fukushima (1995–2005). This retrospective includes fragments of many personal journeys that Nishimura took alone in Japan and overseas, a winter day by the seaside, bus ride to the next town, silhouette of passers-by, an intuitive photographer, Nishimura documents fleeting moments with poetic lightness.


Pan Daijing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .One Hundred Nine Minus (2021)

The artist and composer Pan Daijing (b. 1991, China; lives in Berlin) welcomes visitors to trust & confusion with a work at the spiral staircase leading up to the gallery. A composition consisting of two opera voices—a soprano and a countertenor processed and textured by a Revox tape recorder—lures the listener on a sonic journey based on the act of voicing. For Pan, the act of voicing today has an existential allure as it can reveal a deeply personal dimension of life in an age of damage, loss, and longing. Countering the sense of collective solitude, Pan’s com-position seeks proximity with the listener and proposes a pro-foundly intimate form of shelter: voices guide, accompany, and incline towards the listener. As responsiveness is one of Pan’s fundamental poetic principles, her practice always embraces the architecture it is hosted by. Exploring the spiral staircase’s movement, sound becomes more audible when ascending the stairs as the heartbeat quickens, and eases off when leaving the space and descending the staircase, slowly departing from the experience of the exhibition. For Pan, architecture and sound blend into a sonic environment for visitors to inhabit. As such, the listening experience unfolds in an entanglement with the body’s movement and navigation, offering multiple angles for observation and inward travel. Strongly informed by the practice of improvisation at all stages of artistic creation, Pan’s singers employ operatic vocal tech-niques that enter here in dialogue with her expanded techniques of vocalisation and narration. Tapping into these technical tools allows Pan to broaden musical awareness and recognition into an unknown territory of sonic experiences. Based on a repertoire of words underpinning the creative process, the composition drives the listener away from logical understanding towards a sensate rendition of reality, as words are stripped from their layers of meaning. A vocal beacon, One Hundred Nine Minus guides the voice, the ear, and the heart into fervent oscillation.

Unfolding throughout the duration of trust & confusion, Pan’s project transforms and extends into other spaces and durations. As part one of the contribution for trust & confusion, the finale of the project is a performance environment scheduled in December.


Liliana Porter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Untitled (triangle) (1973)Since the 1960s, the artist Liliana Porter (b. 1941, Argentina, lives in New York) has been conjuring a tentacular body of work that keeps on appearing in many guises. Experimenting with print-making’s materiality and processes, Porter, as cofounder of the New York Graphic Workshop (1964–70), redefined the medium and set in motion pertinent and conceptual questions about what constitutes a carrier, a form, and its reproduction. Untitled (triangle) shows three hands: two of Liliana Porter’s herself, inter-twined with one of Luis Camnitzer’s, the conceptual artist and her husband then. The hands each have two lines that meet at an edge drawn on them; when hands and lines connect, the figure of a triangle is formed. The picture captures the moment when the hands meet and the triangle forms. As the hands part, the triangle disappears too, its pieces lingering around on moving hands, transforming from a closed to an open figure.

Untitled (triangle) is part of a more extensive series of works in which Porter negotiates the relation between lived and captured time, and between the movement suggested by the body and the stillness indicated by the line. The series moreover explores the genre of the self-portrait: by offering her hands to the viewer she also questions why a portrait of the self is presupposed mostly to be pictured as a face. Almost 50 years after its production, the picture takes on a different meaning. At a time when touch is undermined and fundamentals of care have both accelerated and faltered, the photograph proposes a touching imaginary horizon. Here, the equilateral triangle, borne by many hands, suggests that unifying, supporting, and interweaving are much-needed principles in building worlds.

Courtesy of the artist

Sean Raspet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . phenethyldioxanone overlay (E12:E16) (2020–2021) in collaboration with Shengping Zheng

The artist Sean Raspet (b. 1981, United States; lives in Detroit) considers molecules to be his primary medium and constructs artificial flavours and fragrance molecules that materialise in visible and invisible forms of installations. Challenging the con-ventional processes of scent-making, he is also a co-founder of nonfood, an artificial algae-based food company that provides green and sustainable meals.

Unsettling the image-based perception of art and filling the space in an invisible manner, Raspet exhibits two molecules newly developed with Shengping Zheng, associate professor of chemistry at Hunter College, New York City. The work comes into being on an atomic level: oxygen atoms are removed or added, hydrogen becomes a game-changer, carbon chains are formed—call it sculpture or architecture on the invisible plane. Although stemming from a complex, technical, and minute procedure of alterations, the fragrance creates a direct, unmediated experi-ence. As chemistry renders the world through formulas, a smell also holds qualities of transferral and the potential to activate a memory: of a place, a situation, a former lover. As such, the work proposes an invigorating interrogation of the traditional dichotomies between the rational and the sensorial.

Raspet is driven by the unknown and by the search for smells not easily recognisable or without a direct referential quality. Unlike what one would expect from a fragrance, the works’s source mate-rials are derivatives of petro-chemical byproducts and bulky indus-trial materials, usually deployed for applications in the production of paint, plastics, and pharmaceuticals. More than expanding the senses, Raspet challenges preconceptions of the olfactory and the often-inadequate language systems that are used to describe it—how does one describe an unknown smell without using clichés? The answer to that question reveals the unexpected beauty of synthetic construction. Just like the discovery of artificial vanilla in wood pulp or coal tar, one might stumble upon it by chance.


Moe Satt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mini-Retrospective (a sheet of paper) (2021) The work of Moe Satt (b. 1983 in Myanmar; lives in Yangon, Myanmar) investigates the aesthetic, social, and performative implications of Myanmar historical events both under a military and democratic government. By using both object and body, he explores the constitution of the self and identity in the face of social and political upheaval. Quoting gestures and references from popular culture, religion, quotidian life, and social conduct, he often places his own body as a site of critical reflection.

One robust and recurrent thread in his work is centred around the use of hands. For instance, in his early performance piece and the eponymous photograph series F n’ F (Face & Fingers) (2008–2009), Moe Satt gathered a collection of 108 ges-tures between the face and the fingers. Performed in varying sequences, a choreography unfolds, dancing through gestures in a visualisation of the oppressiveness of the military regime, in a way that is visually sober yet poetically striking. His light sculpture Five Questions to the Society where I Live (2015) con-tinues this research into the hand gesture and its political impli-cations: a silent gestural language, developed in the wake of the national elections, forms the base of the work. The video Hands around in Yangon (2012), too, explores the use of hands and their movements at work and raises questions about agency, craft, and labour conditions in the country. From the hands to the body is the photograph series Other side of the revolution (2018), which depicts his naked body covered in gold paint, with red stains marked by his clenched fists daubed in red paint. Using conceptual frameworks to address concrete political situations, the silent gesture time and time again becomes a testament of how societal organisation can be re-articulated anew—and of the vital role played by the body, its postures, and modes of conduct.


Tino Sehgal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .These Associations, This Variation (2012)One of the most important artists in recent decades, the work of Tino Sehgal (b. 1976, UK; lives in Berlin) unfolds itself not by way of the object but by ephemeral constructed situations. Redefining the museum as a place for social relations, Sehgal radically eliminates the conventional art object, shifting the focus to live interconnections—compositions of voices, choreographies, and people, without involving or generating any physical materials.

Marked by his training in political economy and dance, Sehgal’s live works consist of language, conversations, games, move-ments, and choreographies, poignantly reflecting on the ways society today takes and is given shape. Like no other, Sehgal rearticulates art spaces as a ritualistic environment of social interactions. Visitors often take part in the very construction of the works, which in turn prompt the visitors’ responses, opin-ions, and sentiments, and carry them to a new place. Thus, the conventional subject-object relation is challenged and redirected into a fleeting production of implication, engagement, connec-tion, and belonging. Meaning and value are thereby produced through the exchange of language and movement, rather than through the traditional operation of visual object and beholder.

Sehgal’s work raises pertinent questions about the mass pro-duction and consumption of materials that have taken hold of our contemporary life. With a deep consideration of locality and minimal carbon footprint, a full cast of over 170 people was cho-sen in Hong Kong through a long process of exchange, training, and collaboration—offering immeasurable community impact and turning the institution towards engagement beyond its usual remit.

Originally commissioned for the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, These Associations involves interpreters of various ages and backgrounds, from all walks of life. Here, adapted for the context of Hong Kong, 30 interpreters at any given time transform Tai Kwun’s historic Prison Yard into a changing and fluctuating live environment. In the 3/F Tai Kwun Contemporary gallery space is This Variation—first presented at d(OCUMENTA) 13—where Sehgal’s most exuberant and musical work opens up dance to be experienced through listening and sensing.

Produced by Tai Kwun Contemporary.

SERAFINE1369 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Continual Cry (2021) The work of SERAFINE1369 (lives in London) uses dance and movement as a vehicle to investigate the psychosomatic and social entanglements present within a body. Their work proposes a space of the in-between, revealing that a body is a permeable vessel governed by external forces, yet in its fragility is electric enough to bend, twist, and reinvent them anew.

For trust & confusion, SERAFINE1369 developed A Continual Cry, an archival installation transforming over time which the visitor is invited to enter. A Continual Cry brings together excerpts from SERAFINE1369’s previous works by way of a changing constel-lation of video, text, object, and music. Objects, movements, and intensities are summoned and then again evaporate. In the absence of the artist, an algorithm serves as their proxy, making decisions about how the work unfolds. At random, one-minute fragments of various video works will play—some are perfor-mances for the camera, some stylistically edited documentation, some trailers, some made to be viewed alone, some whose original function was to be seen within the context of a live performance. The visitor enters this jagged and meandering site of history, reflection, and accumulation, and is invited to an open-ended system where the recombination of artifacts allows for new unfoldings of meanings—just as SERAFINE1369 considers bodies to be transfigurative vessels that record and hold experiences. Moving beyond the traditional notion of the archive, in which artifacts are ordered chronologically and sys-tematically, A Continual Cry calls for another kind of history, where the past, present, and future collide, where the strat-ification of time is rewired into a vivid network of affinities, intensities, and alternative narratives.


Algirdas Šeškus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Mid-October Retrospective (2021)That the artist Algirdas Šeškus (b. 1945, Lithuania; lives in Vilnius) would spend almost a decade (1975–1985) of his life taking pic-tures could be considered a matter of chance. What started as a few images in an application for a cameraman’s job at the Soviet Lithuanian television station ended up becoming a photographic practice spanning over 15,000 photographs. Šeškus’s work is characterised by a kaleidoscopic and improvisational approach, with the search of the eventful in the trivial: scenes of pleasure, love, and loneliness meet pictures of abstract encounters, empty snowy streets, a fallen tree trunk, or an opened tin of canned fish—as equals. His untethered and often bleary documentary style captured modes of being and doing that escaped the official portrayals of Soviet life, in contrast to the more programmatic and theatrical genres of most of his contemporaries, thus revealing a generally unacknowledged dimension of life. In 1985 he would abandon photography as “things didn’t appear to him anymore.” He would leave photography untouched until 2010.

Presented as two sets of flickering images projected side by side, Mid-October Retrospective brings together a handpicked sequence of 500 previously unpublished photographs, com-piled and edited in collaboration with the Lithuanian artist Elena Narbutaitė for trust & confusion. This digitised selection offers a journey through ten years of diaristic photography, moving between Vilnius, Moscow, and the Lithuanian coastal town Nida, and following unrelated and anonymous figures caught amid their day-to-day activities. Šeškus’s attention was drawn to their gazes, often turned outwards and beyond the picture plane, hinting at life continuing beyond the image—and suggesting a state of wonder, full of imagination and wanderlust. Whereas Šeškus’s oeuvre is more readily known for the performative dimension of human activity, Mid-October Retrospective con-trasts the human body with sections of abandoned cityscapes, open fields, and muddy roads.

Courtesy of the artistNew commission by Tai Kwun Contemporary

Sriwhana Spong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Instrument H (Monster Chicken) (2021)The artist Sriwhana Spong (b. 1979, New Zealand; lives in London), of Indonesian and Pākehā descent, works with every-day materials and offers installations that encompass sculptural, musical, and performative dimensions that inspire moments of gathering, listening, and transformation. Her new sculpture Instrument H (Monster Chicken) is made of approximately 50 bronze casts of chicken bones and twigs that Spong collected during the past year between her house and her artist studio. As a trace of her daily route past two 24-hour fried chicken shops, the chicken bones became a testament to one of the few possible trajectories during months of pandemic-induced lockdowns. Connected with cable ties and strings, the bones are simultaneously singular and plural; they form a vocabulary, a spine, a map of something bigger than a chicken. Like many of Spong’s works, Instrument H (Monster Chicken) ties together a contemporary reflection on ecology with the long-lived per-sistence of cultural practices and embodied knowledge.

The sculpture refers to the chicken as the vertebrate animal that outnumbers any other on this planet today, with over 23 billion; the production and consumption of chicken thus place tremendous pressure on global ecologies. On the other hand, the sculpture could be seen as an extension of chicken bone divination, an ancient practice still in use. Found in cultures worldwide, bone-reading, or osteomancy, entrusts the bones with the power to reveal the future and recount the past. As such, the chicken bones could be considered a compass, a tool that shows the way. Activating the sculpture as an instrument, the bronze bones are dragged through the space daily, as their tinkling sounds merge with the sonic waves emitted by other objects in the exhibition: a future-telling.


Trevor Yeung . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Learning to be a tree lover (Protection) , Sunset 24/7, Night Mushroom Colon (Tai Kwun) Yes, I am fine (2021)Exploring forms for the in-between, the artist Trevor Yeung (b. 1988, China; lives in Hong Kong) operates on the interstices of ecology, horticulture, and artificial habitats. His four works evoke contemplation about protection, control, and simulation of safety.

Yeung often works with the controlled environments of aquar-iumsn. Yes, I am fine awaits the visitor in the Day Room in the form of a fish tank, without any species, filled to the brim with crystal clear water. The water itself, and not a species in captiv-ity, is the agent—will it spill over its own vessel, or not? Where day shifts into night at the idyllic juncture of sundown, Sunset 24/7, also uninhabited by fish, poses questions about the iden-tification processes between fish and their owners, prompting a reflection of who is actually in the tank (fish or human?) and thus under control and protection. Nearby, Learning to be a tree lover (Protection) emerges as a stainless steel structure, both guiding and inhibiting the visitor’s movement, and refers to the cages used to protect the incense tree Aquilaria sinensis, a medicinal tree and source of agarwood. Long threatened by illegal felling, the tree, according to popular lore, also gave rise to the name of Hong Kong, literally “incense harbour”.

Ports and their luminous appearances are frequently beacons and homes, too. Inspired by the experience of loneliness and adaptation to new surroundings, Night Mushroom Colon (Tai Kwun) presents an ensemble of night lamps and plug adaptors collected over years of travelling. The night lamp, a source of safety and comfort amid unease, leads a life of its own as it grows into an exaggerated heap of artificial mushrooms—an overgrowth of night lamps expressing a heightened longing for safe space.


Scarlet Yu and Xavier Le Roy . . . . . Still in Hong Kong (2021)After more than a year of global slowdown and restricted mobility, the artists and choreographers Scarlet Yu (b. 1978, Hong Kong; lives in Berlin) and Xavier Le Roy (b. 1963, France; lives in Berlin) examine the notion of stillness in Still in Hong Kong, a performa-tive proposition developed in collaboration with 22 performers who currently reside in Hong Kong. The word “still” holds multiple meanings as it refers not only to something “motionless” but also “quiet” or “calm”, as well as “up to this time”, “nevertheless”, or a “frozen excerpt of a moving image”.

Taking up this multiplicity, a performer addresses the visitor to engage in an encounter, and shares a personal collection of “stills” that are made of actions, postures, stories, and extended into conversations. The collection of “stills”, created in dialogue with Yu and Le Roy, are embodiments of a series of individual and collective memories, experiences, and relations of and with Hong Kong. Within the context of the exhibition, Yu and Le Roy bind their understanding of stillness with a twisted meaning of sculpture. In doing so, they question sculpture’s alleged proper-ties: What materials are they made of or composed with? What remains of them when they have been removed or destroyed? How does their presence linger? How do they traverse both the public and the private? In an engaging exchange of showing, telling, and conversing, the body is revealed as a permeable vessel and a generator of physical and mental images and imag-inations that travel both in time and space. Inspired and driven by the conflation of trust and confusion, Yu and Le Roy set out a choreographic situation which questions the traditional divides between object and subject, the organic and the synthetic, movement and stillness, performer and spectator/visitor. In this alluring exchange, the performer and visitor transform uncanny moments into precious encounters.

New commission by Tai Kwun ContemporaryThis work was live from 1 May to 31 August

Tai Kwun Learning and ExperienceJoin our learning and experience programmes, designed for visitors of different backgrounds and needs. We hope to explore possibilities in the dialogue between art and visitors.

. . . Hi! & Seek

Located on Tai Kwun Contemporary’s second floor, Hi! & Seek is a space of dialogue and exploration. We are delighted to share with you the stories behind the exhibitions and the artworks.Send us your insights and ideas or questions and thoughts for the curator(s)/artist(s). Hi! & Seek is this time co-presented by interns of Tai Kwun Contemporary: Au Ho Yin, Lau Sze Ting, and Monique Leong.

. . . Tai Kwun Contemporary Weekend Guided Tour

Come spend your afternoon at Tai Kwun Contemporary! Learn about the art in our exhibitions by joining a tour with one of our friendly, professional docents.Saturdays and Sundays from 12 September to 5 December 2021Cantonese 2 pm | English 3 pmTai Kwun ContemporaryWeekend guided tours may be cancelled depending on changes in the government’s epidemic prevention measures. Please stay tuned to the Tai Kwun website or email [email protected]

trust & confusion. . . Curators: Xue Tan, Raimundas Malašauskas. . . Associate Curator: Tom Engels . . . Assistant Curators: Louiza Ho, Erin Li

. . . Head of Art: Tobias Berger

. . . Graphic Design: Julie Peeters

. . . Editor of voices: Tom Engels

. . . Editor of views: Julie Peeters

. . . Website Design and Development: Asger Behncke Jacobsen

. . . Chinese Typesetting: Chiachi Chao

. . . Custom Typeface: Bold Decisions

. . . Booklet Text: Tom Engels

. . . Editor: Daniel Szehin Ho

. . . Copyediting: Yiu Sheungyee, David Chan, Felicity Wong

. . . Translation: Yue-Jin Ho, Cheong Ming, A. Fung

. . . Design assistance: Laura Martens

. . . Registrar Team: Jessie Mak, Pauline Chao

. . . Tehnician Team: Mark Chung; Hill Li; Kong Chun Hei, Elvis Yip Kin Bon, Cheung Tsz Hin, Li San Kit, Lonely Lau Siu Chung, Luk Chun Wang, Herman Lau, Tom Chung Man, Chan Man Chun, Chan Eddy Wing Leung, Lok Man Chun; Fung Tsun Yin Jasper, Ho Tsz Yeung

. . . Education and Public Programmes: Veronica Wong, Louiza Ho, David Chan; with the Artists’ Book Library: Ingrid Pui Yee Chu; Transmedia Content Creator: Felicity Wong

. . . Gallery Team: Jasmine Cheung, Kylie Tung, the entire docent team

. . . Exhibition Production: Wai Kang Production Limited

. . . AV Support: Show Bros

. . . Performance Production Management: Alice Rensy Pro-duction Limited

. . . Performers: Susan Andersson, Marah Arcilla, Eglė Agnė Benkunskytė, Amy Chan, Chan Shun Chun Natasha, Chan Wai Lok, Brian Cheng, Jacky It It Cheung, Rhyn Cheung, Sylvie Cox, Max Michael Dahlqvist Fuchs, Marie Gailey, Inti Guerrero, Mia Karlberg, Steve Katona, Tadas Kavaliauskas, Jarius King, Ivanhoe Lam, Ellie Law Ching Sum, Alysha Lee, Mickey Lee, Leung Hoi Nga Livy, Leung Tin-chak, Carman Li Ka Man, Sudhee Liao, Gunilla Linton, David Liu, Nancy Luk, Trista Ma Ka Yue, Eva Nordqvist, Ming Pak, Jethro Pioquinto, Jovilė Piragiūtė, Aadityakrishna Sathish, Rose-Marie Q Schönherr, So Yan Ting Esther, Tang Wai Ying Crystal, Alexandra Vusir, Rebecca Wong Pik Kei, Connie.Y, Yang Hao, Harriet Yeung, Gia Yu, Boing Yuen Hau Wing, Ida Griffiths Zee

. . . A heartfelt thank you to the support of Stephen Cheng, Nicola Chu, Mimi and Chris Gradel, Alan Lau as well as an anonymous friend for making the Tino Sehgal projects possible.

. . . Rehearsals of This Variation are graciously hosted by Mimi Brown.

. . . Dancers for This Variation by Tino Sehgal: Marah Arcilla, Niko Cheung, Rhyn Cheung, Sammie Cheung, Kiu Chow, Sylvie Cox, Karina Curlewis, Descha Daemgen, Kenny Ho, Louise Hojer, Monsta Kei, Jarius King, Bobby Lam, Benjamin Law, Stephanie Lee, Kaya Lo, Luen Mo Strangers, Wei Ming Pak, Chris Scherer, Lokin Spark, Suen Nam, Jade Szeto, Kae Wong, Harriet Yeung, Sukirabbit Yip

. . . Interpreters for These Associations by Tino Sehgal: Shane Aspegren, Zari Aspegren, Chan Hiu Ying Janet, Chan Ho Yin Helen, Maria Chan, Chan Mei Kuen Rita, Sharine Chan, Sharon Chan, Susanna Chan, Chan Wan Chee Michelle, Wendy Chan, Chan Xiyong Andrew, Char Hoi Yan Chacha, Dickens Cheng, Joanne Cheuk, Angel Cheung, Cheung Chi Ho, Cheung Chi Ling Dephanie, Cheung Chun Man, Cheung Ka Wai Cindy, Terry Chiu, Andrew Chong, Windsor Chow, Andrea Chu, Chu Lok Yan Chris, Chu Man Nga Mia, Chuk Yin Man Edwin, Jill Angel Chun, Chung Sin Yu Fish, Orly Elias Herman Ferraz, Lulubean Fong, Joanna Fung, Fung Put Samuel, Gao Hongjie, Nicolas Gellon, Roxane Gil, Zoe Gutierrez, Caroline Ha Thuc, Ho Chi Wing, Louiza Ho, Ho Tsz Long Lucy, Ho Yim Yan Yannes, Edie Hu, Lorraine Hui, Venus S M Hui, Ami Hwong, Iaci Lomonaco, Dennis Jason Vidar Isip, King So Chun Kimmy, Annie Kong, Elsa Kong, Lisa Kong, Mandy Kong, Kwok Hoi Ying Jessie, Pamela Kwok, Kwong Sug Ying Suie, Lai Ching Lam Eunice, Jasper Lai, Daiyuk Lam Judy, HoHo Lam, Jaffa Lam, Lam Ka Ting, Lam Kar Yee Joey, Lam Kin Shun, Lam Yiu Hung Eric, Dickson Lau, Jennifer Blossom Lau, Joey Lau, Law Chi Yan Daniel, Ellie Law, Lee Chun Hin Ryan, Lee Ho Wai Benny, Joy Lee, Komatsu Lee On Sang Ami, Amy Leung, Leung Kam Hang, Ray Leung, Leung Suet Yin Jamie, Leung Yee Sin Artemis, Yanyee Lim, Susan Limbu, Liu Ka Hei Alvina, Lo Chi Hoi Lettie, Lo Wing Ki, Dannio Lui, Jade Lui, ManIp, Mok Loy Yuen, Astrid Mong, Chiharu Mukudai, Joseph Mulligan, Ng Cheuk Kei, Jeff Ng, Sybil Ng, Ng Wing Sun Vincent, Or Wai Nam Jophy, Bram Overbeeke, Pierre Palluet, Pang Man, Pang Sze Yin Mida, Polly Pi Ni, Raimondo Romani, Emi Saito, Shan Hao Xian Harry, Thomas Shek, Siu Ji Chin Jovita, Zoe Siu, Alex So, Logan Justin So, So Yuk Cheung, Vincent Suen, Eva Sze, Catherine Tai, Xue Tan, Tang Tsz Fung Charlie, Tang Wai Ying Crystal, Puiyi Tang, Elieen Tsang, Flora Tsang, Isabelle Tsang, Lilian Tsang, Milo Tse, Vicky Tse, Tse Wai Sze, Alberto Gerosa Volontè, Wan Lan, Wan Yiu Ping, Wei Ka Ting Klementine, Angelina Wong, Arthur Wong, Cam Wong, Fan Wong, Wong Kai Wing Chris, Louise Wong, Wong Man Ching Sky, Raymond Wong, Sean Wong, William Wong, Wong Yeun Yu Becky,

Wu Chi Fu Sanecca, Human Wu, Wu Shu Wing Arnold, Kyle Yau, One-K Yau, Yeung Lai Ping Apple, Wing Kin Yeung Ricky, Flora Yiu, Yiu Yuen Ping Vesa, Vicky Yu, Yuen An Tung Ariel, Yuen Hau Wing Boing, Ida Griffiths Zee

. . . The exhibition would not be possible without all artists, as well as Marcia Acita, Lauren Cornell, Descha Daemgen, Tom Eccles, Louise Hojer, Amanda Lo, Iaci Lomonaco, Elena Narbutaite, Mark Pearson, Alice Rensy, Chris Scherer, Chrisann Verges

. . . Special thanks to: Association Le Kwatt, Au Ho Yin, Nick Bastis, BEAU Architects, Diana Campbell Betancourt, Angela Brophy, Vincent Cavaroc, Theodora Chan, Gintaras Didžiapetris, Direction Régionale des Affaires Culturelles d’Ile-de-France, Christopher D’Amelio, Empty Gallery, Alix Eynaudi, The Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation, Michelle Fung Shuk Ha, James Ginzburg, Fanny Herserant, Nayo Higashide, Hugo Jeuffrault, Kwan Sheung Chi, Van Kwok, Alexander Lau, Lau Sze Ting, Pierre Leguillon, Monique Leong, Li Qi, Brittany Margaritis, Maggy Pang, Daniela Perez, Carlota Pérez-Jofre, Polly Ni Pi, Igor Porte, Renny Pritikin, Wren Roland-Dodge, Viktorija Rybakova, Belle Santos, Studio Pan Daijing, Studio Tarek Atoui, Studio Yuko Mohri, Things That Move Ltd., Valerio Tricoli, Watt Studio, Hanns Lennart Wiesner, Samantha Wolf, Leo Xu

Photo credits:Claudia Fernández, Constellation, 2015. Courtesy of the artist.Nile Koetting, Remain Calm (Mobile +), 2021. Courtesy of the artist (foreground); Yuko Mohri, Decomposition and Copula, 2021. Courtesy of the artist (background).Felix Gonzalez-Torres, “Untitled” (North), 1993. Marieluise Hessel Collection, Hessel Museum of Art, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York © Felix Gonzalez-Torres, courtesy of the Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation.Scarlet Yu and Xavier Le Roy, Still in Hong Kong, 2021. Courtesy of the artists.Tamiko Nishimura, My Journey, 1960s–now. Courtesy of the artist.Lina Lapelytė, Study of Slope, 2021. Courtesy of the artist.Installation photography by Kwan Sheung Chi.

The exhibition and its contents do not reflect the views or opinions of the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust or Tai Kwun.

Liliana Porter, Sean Raspet, Moe Satt,Tino Sehgal, SERAFINE1369, Algirdas Šeškus, Sriwhana Spong, 楊沛鏗 Trevor Yeung, 余美華 Scarlet Yu and Xavier Le Roy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 策展人 Curators: 譚雪 Xue Tan and Raimundas Malašauskas, 副策展人 Associate Curator: Tom Engels, . . . . . . 助理策展人 Assistant Curators: 何苑瑜 Louiza Ho and 李伊寧 Erin Li . . . . . . . . .

Documents

信任&迷惑 trust & confusion - Tai Kwun