Fine Art
Revelation series
How I see You my Hong Kong
This blind is a flower-shaped view-finder through which the viewer can experience the world around. In the realm of the exhibition it was created for, the viewers could see each other filtered through the blind as well as other art works that celebrated Hong Kong. My hope was that they saw themselves as part of the exhibition and part of Hong Kong.
“Hong Kong, you are sensuous and rich. You are successful. Yet you have looked favourably on me and let me flourish in your shadow. You have given yourself to me. I tasted you, I got drunk by your beauty. Your colors are blinding and your fragrance makes my head spin. You blossom and bloom the whole year around. Do you ever stop to sleep?”.
Americana and Upside Down Blind
American Blind mimics the way one’s perspective and world view are influenced by the society and its values. A blind’s function is to shield and filter out the outside world to make one’s life more comfortable. The cutout stars defy this purpose revealing what is supposed to be hidden. They themselves become filters to what lies behind and betray what they are supposed to protect. The five point star becomes inverted when the blind is opened bringing in positive and negative symbolism associated with inverted stars.
A commercial plastic blind can be seen an embodiment of the cheap beliefs one accepts without questioning, the lack of interest and conformity that permeate today’s society. There is a certain beauty to this mundane object though. Its simplicity and functionality is complemented by the stars set in a rigid grid reminiscent of the one used for a us flag. The blind has lost its primary function but gained new meaning in its surrounding.
This series piece is dependent on the context it is exhibited in. The American Blind was presented in an exhibition entitled Americana bringing patriotism and consumerism to mind. Upside Down Blind, an inverted twin to this piece, was displayed in a gallery in Czech republic. The wall the blind was hung on was red, evoking the red communist star that symbolized the totalitarian regime for forty years in my country. The stars were set upside down pointing at the absurdity of the system. The message was to remind people of the evil they had already forgotten permeated their everyday existence.
