BREATHE DEEP
EXHIBITION DATES 展覽日期: 12.06-29.08.2021, 11am-9pm
LOCATION 地點:
L/G FOODHALL 美食廣場, G/F Lobby 酒店大堂, 4/F Tomorrow Maybe
EXHIBITION OPENING 展覽開幕: 12.06.2021, 2-6pm
(Exhibition at Lobby will be closed for a week from 28 June - 5 July
位於酒店大堂的部份展覽將於6月28日至7月5日暫停開放)
Inhale…
With every inhale and exhale we are in an expanding and contracting relationship with our planet. This exhibition is about humans, trees, and the breath that connects us.
With restrictions around our daily movement and social interaction over the last year and a half, locally, a vital consolation was our ability to venture into Hong Kong’s country parks and nature reserves.
Trees, earth, blue sky and space serve as short escapes from the stress of the city. Hong Kong’s outdoor spaces and hiking trails became a form of mass therapy that helped to keep our mental health balanced during a time of heightened anxiety, uncertainty and claustrophobia.
While concern around air quality isn’t new, our relationship to air dramatically changed. Virtually overnight, the air we breathed became a collective life-threat, something to be feared. Air was something we could no longer share. Space was something we could not, without careful consideration, cohabit. If we lived with loved ones, simply returning home meant potential transmission. To have proximity we needed a physical barrier, having intimacy was a risky proposition.
With this, access to ‘good’ air and protection from ‘bad’ air were magnified. Oxygen tanks and protective masks were being shipped around the world to the highest bidder while some cities and countries desperately in need were running out. We were suddenly forced to confront the value attached to this given resource, oxygen, that we had taken for granted and the tensions of politics and cost associated with it.
Even more disheartening, was witnessing video and images of air directly and indirectly seized – from slash and burn forest fires in the Amazon, to the police violence that brazenly took the life of George Floyd and reawakened a global movement.
The quality of the air, the way we breathe, and who can and cannot breathe have all became prescient questions in 2020.
This exhibition raises and explores the topic and through the work of 11 artists/collectives contemplates the human relationship to what we consider “our natural environment”.
We are grateful to the participating artists Pablo Albarenga, Shane Aspegren, William Farr, Jon Emmony, Steve Atkins, Sharu Binnong Sikdar, Abby Lee Yan Yee, Ice Wong Kei Suet, Zheng Bo, the Center for Genomic Gastronomy, Hong Kong Art School’s Winnie Hui Wing, Emily Tse, Wallis Chan, Rabina Rai Aki, Xapa Lit, Wise Yeung, Cecil Lee, Bowen Tam, Ellis Lau, Jaffa Lam and to the community who submitted works for the open call.
…Exhale
吸氣…
我們與自然環境之間的關係似遠還近，我們的一吸一呼影響著我們所居的地球的繁盛與消亡。這個展覽是關於人類、樹木，以及在兩者之間交換的空氣。
過去一年半間人們的日常活動及社交受限，郊野公園及自然保護區為這城裡的人提供了至關重要的心靈慰籍。面對高度焦慮、不確定性，甚至幽閉恐懼，樹木、泥土、藍天及田野暫借為侷促城市的逃生口，大自然成為我們集體治療的場所，讓我們得以保持心境平衡。
雖然過往人們一直因為不同的原因而關注空氣質素，但在這兩年間我們與空氣的關係經歷了徹底的改變。一夜之間，呼吸這個原本最平常的維生本能變成了最危險的動作，我們吸入的每口空氣都有可能致命。在人人自危的情況下，我們不能再共享空氣；當簡單如回家的舉動亦成為對愛人潛在的致命威脅，連共享空間都成為奢侈。人與人之間的交流無可避免地被隔絕，對親密感的渴望嚴如苛求。連結，成了最危險的事。
誰可以呼吸「好」的空氣、誰又可以不受「壞」空氣的傷害，成為國家、個族群、個人之間存活之戰。特權與不公在新世界裡面被無限放大：氧氣筒及防護口罩並非供不應求，但由於價高者得的原則，某些國家及城市始終無法得到急需的物資。我們被逼正視「氧氣」的價值與本質：這種我們賴以生存的元素並非理所當然，我們必需覺察與之相關的權力角力與代價。
更令人心碎的是我們目睹「空氣」與「呼吸」是如何以各種直接與間接的方式被剝奪：由亞馬遜森林大火至濫權者公然奪去喬治·佛洛伊德的生命，重燃潛伏而久的全球性運動。空氣的質素、呼吸的方法以至權利，成為2020年最急切的問題。
是次展覽以十一位藝術家/團隊的作品，提出並探討人類與「我們的」自然環境間無形且不可分割的關系。我們感激Pablo Albarenga, Shane Aspegren, William Farr, Jon Emmony, Steve Atkins, Sharu Binnong Sikdar, 李欣儀, 黃姫雪,鄭波,基因美食中心, 香港藝術學院的許穎, 謝婉婷, 陳婉瑩, Aki Rabina Rai, 列宛旻, 楊晨威, 李頌昇, 譚博文, 劉允禧同學，他們的指導老師林嵐，以及所有向我們提交作品的公眾成就是次展覽。
…呼氣
（原文請參照英文版）