Hanart TZ Gallery

Previous Exhibition

Fascinations (Suki Chan, Leung Mee-ping, Melanie Jackson, Angela Su)
著迷

29th June - 16th July, 2005
Hanart T Z Gallery

Fascinations
Exhibition organised by Pamela Kember

sponsored by:
British Council
University of the Arts, London Central St Martins College of Art and Design
K plus K
Veda
Videotage

Supported by:
Hugh Zimmern
Anna & Nick Koor
Jonathan Douglas
Charles Goddard.

(fascinate; noun. 1. capture the interest of; attract irresistibly. 2.
paralyse with fear, or terror)

Selecting an exhibition with a theme of 'fascination' presents itself as an
opportunity to take a look at four artist's work of a special character,
rather than a style, or ubiquitous trend such as 'Young British Artists', or
'Art from Hong Kong." Because when we read such stories we are intrigued
to know more about them- who are they, or what happened in the end.

Certainly all four artists, Suki Chan, Melanie Jackson, Leung Meeping, and
Angela Su, capture obscure or personal narratives through various mediums:
fabric, photography, film, video, and sound, to explore a range of human
interactions or conflicts. In part, the idea for the project alludes to
Ackbar Abbas's reading of fascination "As any experience that captures our
attention without at the same time submitting entirely to our understanding"

Such was the case of a news item that the artist Melanie Jackson had first
read in article that touched upon a foreign domestic helper in Hong Kong,
whose bed was formed from a cupboard, that she first had to remove all the
items before she could sleep. This poignant animated video by Melanie
Jackson, entitled All in a Day's Work, forms part of Some Things You are Not
Allowed To Send Around The World, that is both a personal and universal
confrontation with issues of human rights, labour and displacement.

Jackson has subsequently produced another intensely engaging work, entitled,
Made in China.* (to be shown at Videotage from 2nd - 8th July 2005) This
part/animated video installation, weaves together the tales of two Chinese
women and their experiences of work and migration.

Uprootedness and dislocation also comes closer to the memories of Suki Chan,
a Hong Kong born artist living and working between London and Manchester.
Her striking installation, In Silence, is an extremely delicate intricately
placed mass of laser cut black vinyl forms, that resemble hundreds and
thousands of grains of black-dyed rice - competing with miniature
monopoly-like house structures dotted around the floor. The work is also
strongly poetic, and amazingly hypnotic.

Hong Kong based artist Leung Meeping by contrast, concentrates on the
micro-politics of Chinese society through the individual, and probes into
the ordinary life of a lone figure. In this instance, her video, Out of
Place, reflects precisely upon that ambiguity between notions of public and
private, home and place and the position of the subject in it. This
surveillance or intrusion, reveals the artist's fascination with following a
complete stranger for almost a week.

Angela Su presents her installation, Senninbari, which is personal
engagement with the extreme contradictions and complexities involved in
Sino -Japanese relations, that is both the subject matter of this project,
as much as a private examination on our current engagement with rewriting
history, atonement, and the concerns over acts of forgetting.

All four artist's stories presented at HANART TZ GALLERY together for the first
time
are compelling. Meanwhile they aim to counter the loss of histories and
narratives of people whose lives have, or continue to be irretrievably
altered by world events and circumstances.

Pamela Kember

Melanie Jackson's Made in China, (supported by The British Council, Hong
Kong,) will be installed with special screenings at Videotage, from 2nd -
9th July, VIDEOTAGE NO. 13, BLK PB 567 CATTLE DEPOT ARTIST VILLAGE 63 MA
TAU KOK ROAD TO KWA WAN, KOWLOON. HONG KONG EMAIL: TEL: 852 2573 1869 FAX:
852 2503 5978