Sun Hung Kai Finance - Acting role

I recently remembered my experience acting in some TV commercials, which were great fun, and I thought I would repost a video of an advert for Sun Hung Kai Finance that I took part in a few years ago. This was originally posted on my previous blog.

7th Bienal Internacional de Gravura - Douro 2014

I sent two of my colour etchings to this prestigious exhibition last month and the post office informed me that the shipping would take 7-10 days, easily enough time before the deadline.
I had previously paid the entrance fee of 50 Euros via Paypal.

Once the submission deadline had passed I received a reminder to the effect that my work had still not arrived and I tracked the package through the Hong Kong post office. The package had been stuck in the customs in Portugal for a couple of weeks and was, apparently, still there. I passed this information to the curator/director Nuno Canelas and I am still waiting for his reply.

One of the prints I had made during my residency at Guanlan in China and it would be a terrible loss after having another copy of the edition badly damaged when I sent it to Guanlan in an attempt to have it included in a show there. In that case not only was the work rejected but it was returned to me badly damaged with deep creases running through the print.

Not to mention the 50 Euros and the high postage fee. Fingers crossed that this is not another story of untrustworthy organization or worse...

Book Sale

I have decided to sell off some of my book collection and I will begin by concentrating on the poetry section.
The first 4 books I have selected are as follows:

a) The Indoor Park by Sean O'Brien 1983, First Edition - BloodAxe Books.

This book has been read and is slightly faded with some very pale spots on some of the pages.

b) Under the Influence - Douglas Dunn on Philip Larkin 1987, First Edition - Edinburgh University Library.

This book has been read and is slightly faded with some pale spots on the first and last pages.

c) A Long Shot to Heaven by Jeremy Read 1982, First Edition - The Menard Press

This book has been read and is slightly faded with pale spots on the front and back covers.

d) The First Death of Venice by Martin Stokes 1987, First Edition - BloodAxe Books.

This book has been read and is slightly faded.

See scans below (books look better than in the scans…)

If you are interested in purchasing any of these books please send me an email at thirtythreetemple@gmail.com

Iphigenia in Tauris - Pina Bausch

On 12^th March 2014 I attended a performance of Iphigenia in Tauris at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre  by the Tanztheatre Wuppertal Pina Bausch.

In order to guarantee myself tickets for this performance I had purchased the tickets months before only to discover later that it was on the same evening as the HK ArtWalk. However, I couldn’t feel disappointed as the performance was truly unforgettable.

Pina Bausch first choreographed Iphigenia in Tauris in 1974, before she had fully developed the language that would make her famous and that would change modern dance forever but she was already revolutionizing the way the actors/dancers/performers told the tale.

The sets, the costumes, the music and the singing had been pared down until all that is left is pure emotion. In fact, with the chorus seated in boxes on either side of the stage, merging with the audience and the minimal setting I felt transported back to ancient Greece watching and listening to this tragic tale set in the days preceding and after the Trojan War.

Revival: Performance at 100ft Park

Revival: Performance at 100 ft Park

Artist: Bobby, YU Shuk Pui

Walking along Lai Chi Kok Road from the local Sham Shui Po MTR station I found the small art-space (100 foot park) sited in a shop window enabling passers-by to easily view the work being performed. There was even a long wooden bench available for interested parties to sit and watch from outside on the pavement.

On entering the shop I saw an empty white space with a light grey floor. A simple wooden stool had been placed slightly off-centre and around the stool a few objects had been left: a white rope, a roll of black adhesive tape and a pair of electric hair clippers. I had come tonight to see a performance created and performed by one of my students of the Visual Arts and Culture Programme at the Hong Kong Design Institute.

As the performance commenced, Bobby Pui was seated on the wooden stool with a young man sitting on her lap. She was wearing black; he wore white. A third person bound them together with the white rope and they both wore blindfolds. The black female figure could have been a shadow of the male character in white, unable to move without the permission of the white figure physically pinning her to the chair.

The man moved first. He removed his blindfold, untied the rope,  and stood up. Using the roll of black tape he formed a tape square around the stool as if creating a fence to hold the stool and its occupant prisoner. The male figure created boundaries for the female figure, dictating rules and parameters.

Bobby remained seated, motionless.
He walked around the space until he was standing behind her. He lifted her arms and as he arranged them into different poses, Bobby offered no resistance and allowed her arms to be placed in first one position and then another as if she was an automaton or a puppet to be manipulated by the male figure.

After that, Bobby got up from the stool and they both stood facing each other, although she still wore the blindfold. Even as they faced each other the male figure's dominance was demonstrated by the mask he had discarded and the mask she still wore.
The man put his hand to her face and forcibly pushed it away from him to the side. Was he punishing her? Or was he unable to look directly at her? Again and again he did this, several times until his movement grew more forcible and an audible slap was heard as his hand hit her face, knocking her head to the side. The man then left.

After a pause, Bobby removed her blindfold, picked up the hair clippers and began to shave her own head. She had shaved almost half of her head before the man returned and obligingly shaved the rest of her head. Once her entire head had been shaved, the man again left. She had begun to initiate an action but the male figure had briefly returned as if to remind her that she should rely on him to carry out any action. 

Bobby put down the hair clippers, raised herself from the stool, broke the tape barrier surrounding the stool and left the scene. The performance was over and the female character was freed from confinement.

I attended the performance to watch an art student but in fact I saw an artist. I was taken aback by Bobby’s seriousness in the carrying out of the event. She displayed determination, imagination and creativity beyond her years. She has an abundance of energy and I can only look forward to her future career as it unfolds. 

I was also impressed by the artspace:
http://100ftpark.wordpress.com
https://www.facebook.com/100ftPARK

It is another welcome addition to the cultural life of Hong Kong. I personally feel that it is small arts venues and groups such as these, which are the future of Hong Kong culture.

Photographs below courtesy of Ken Jai and Yu Ying Nai.

Visit to Sendai, Japan

At the end of November 2013 I flew to Sendai in Japan via Narita to attend a DESIS Japan forum in Matsushima with a delegation from the Hong Kong Design Institute. For two nights we stayed in Sendai City but on the second of the three nights we spent the night at the Daikaiso Inn where the forum was being held.

The morning and afternoon were spent listening to the very interesting and engaging presentations while lunch was taken down in Matsushima which is a beautiful place and somewhere I really must return to. In fact Matsushima is the last stop on the local railway line as the terrible tsumani took out the whole next section of track.

The next day was spent taking a tour around the worst affected area of Ishinomaki which was devastated. The whole waterfront area was completely destroyed and it is still being cleared up. A local guide told us the story of how he narrowly escaped death when his car was trapped in a traffic jam. Luckily he managed to run and take shelter in a 2 story building nearby. Many more were not so lucky and perished still trapped in their cars.

On the last evening I had a walk around Sendai City which had been decorated with lovely Christmas decorations, and on the next morning's flight back to Hong Kong it was difficult not to think back to the awful events which took place in the Sendai region.

Before we left Sendai for the airport I had the opportunity to walk across the city to the Mediatheque, the library designed by Japanese Architect Toyo Ito - winner of the 2013 Pritzker Prize. It was completed in 2001 and although it definitely has the 'lived in' feel to it, it felt a working part of the city, very much alive. On the ground floor we saw young kindergarten children enjoying a singing game and on the upper levels many students were working which is great to see. I enjoyed this experience with Sheila Levrant de Bretteville who came from Yale University to act as visiting fellow at the Hong Kong design Institute.

Beautiful view of Matsushima from my room in the Daikaiso Inn

DESIS Japan forum, morning session

DESIS Japan forum, afternoon session

The only remaining private
 building on the seafront at Ishinomaki

A badly damaged school, luckily the children escaped onto the hill behind

Toyo Ito's Mediatheque - exterior view

Toyo Ito's Mediatheque - interior view, ground floor

Toyo Ito's Mediatheque - interior view, upper floor

Saturday 2nd November 2013 - 'Innocarnival'

On the first Saturday in November I lead a group of my 'Visual Arts and Culture' students to run a workshop at the Hong Kong Science Park, part of the 'Innocarnival 2013'.

After a short introduction we worked with secondary school students as they used waste plastic bottle caps to create artworks with the help of their imagination and hot glue guns.

The students all had great fun and they came up with some surpassing results. Who would have thought that plastic 'rubbish' could be re-used to create art? Art need not always be made using clay, marble, bronze, iron, wood or steel - anything goes!