solo exhibition by HO SIN TUNG

MAY 08  —  JUN 08 2025

Tomorrow Maybe, 4/F Eaton HK

…at the beginning of something which, incomprehensibly, you feel and experience as if it were an ending. This unease is summed up in a particularly terrifying phrase: “Now what?”

——A Heart So White / Javier Marías

In 2020, some newlyweds were unable to return to their home countries during their honeymoon because of the pandemic, and their situation was described by the media as being “Stuck in Paradise.” Couples often choose to take their honeymoon in idealized places that are beautiful yet unreal. Such irreversible one-way street is the transitional time before two individuals enter a system, vaguely shrouded in the ominousness of some kind of doomsday, disaster impending. 

Departing from such discomfort, Ho Sin Tung, as per usual, cites texts both ancient and modern. From Homer’s Odyssey to contemporary poets Anne Carson and Lana Del Rey, these texts allow “the final moments” of an external world and personal affairs to reflect one another. They organize interconnected themes that appeared in different time and space, such as paradise, homeland, marriage, and resistance. Mankind yearns for paradise but is also fearful of eternity; endings bring regrets, but they also beget the possibility of beauty. What happened will happen again and again; it will be repeated in history as chants and songs.

In this exhibition, the artist returns to the obscurity and complexity of her own self. A diverse array of mediums ranging from painting, to installation, photography, moving image, and found objects gives figurative form to her iterative ideas. Here, Ho converses with her audience with an unsettling frankness.

 

那個原本還是某個事件的起點，卻莫名奇妙地彷彿已到了它的終點。這種不適被簡化成一句可怕的句子：「那現在是怎樣呢？」

——《如此蒼白的心》哈維爾．馬利亞斯

2020年，一些新婚夫婦在度蜜月期間，因為疫症而無法返回自己的國家，其處境被傳媒形容為「滯留天堂」。蜜月旅行常選址美麗而缺乏生活氣息的虛幻之地，這不可逆的單行道是兩個個體走進體制前的過渡時光，彷彿災厄將至，隱約籠罩著某種末日的不祥。

由此出發，何倩彤如常援引古今文本，由荷馬史詩《奧德賽》到當代詩人安．卡森和拉娜德芮，讓外在的世界與個人情事的「最後時光」互相映照，梳理出在不同時空中曾出現的樂園、故土、婚姻、反抗等環環相扣的主題。人既嚮往樂園但亦懼怕永恆，終結帶來遺憾但也催生了美的可能。發生過的會一再發生，在歷史中被反覆吟哦與詠唱。

此次展覽藝術家重返自身的隱晦與複雜，動用不同的媒介，包括繪畫、裝置、攝影、錄像、現成物，為她的腹稿賦予具象形式，以一種使人不安的坦率與觀眾對話。