中文Reports from Echigo-Tsumari Art Field, around #HKHouse: rising to a morning of blazing cicada calls, brisk winds, and terraced rice fields bursting in abundance. Recalling Hong Kong Farmers’ round veggie fields in Maitsuda that demand different kinds of attention. On the same note of ‘attention’, previewing #HongKongHouse, #LeungChiWo & #SaraWongChihang’s Tsunan Museum of the Lost: The artists pay tribute to persons unintentionally captured in old photographs of residents in the region. Utilizing multiple local archives, with meticulous studies into each person’s attire, adornment, and the circumstances they are in (eg. a gust lifts the tail of a man’s suit, a badminton player ready to hit the shuttlecock…), the artists become their semblance, which is then presented as full-sized portraits. I find this gesture of embodiment the most moving: in each semblance is not only a person but an encounter, without dismissing the incommensurable distance in-between. The work involves the leashing and unleashing of this distance; perhaps also a whisper: “How ready are we to let others into our regard?” I do wonder if the standardized format of the photographic works offer the best access to the subtlety of the artists’ experience. (Yang Yeung)
