Spatial politics in socially engaged art – projects about the Umbrella Movement created by two Hong Kong women artists

ABSTRACT

The Umbrella Movement in 2014 drew attention to Hong Kong from across the world and triggered local artists to respond to the current social and political issues through their art. This article discusses three socially engaged projects created in response to the Umbrella Movement by two women artists: Birthday Cakes (2014) and Love China Love Hong Kong Thick Toast (2015) by Phoebe Man, and Singing Under the Moon for Today and Tomorrow (2015) by Jaffa Lam. This article investigates how the aesthetic regime of these projects is realized from a feminist perspective. It argues that women artists can intervene in the male-dominated representations of borders and spatial politics in Hong Kong art to create an alternative by adopting feminist art tactics. Moreover, women artists can take a step further to reconsider the mechanism of identity politics and pay close attention to relational forms in socially engaged art to achieve the dissensus of aisthesis. After all, it is the construction of a community of dissensus that resonates with the spirit of the Umbrella Movement.

KEYWORDS:

• Hong Kong art
• Chinese contemporary art
• women’s art
• feminist art
• socially engaged art
• Umbrella Movement

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Dr. Kimburley Choi, Dr. Damien Charrieras and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful and supportive feedback. I also appreciate Jeremy Hung for his editing support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Zeng Hong is an academic, curator and art critic. She is the Yale-China Arts Fellow in 2020, funded by the Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University. She received an M.A. in Cinema Studies and a Ph.D. in Visual Art Studies. Her research interests lie in contemporary art in Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta region in China, as well as gender politics in film. She is a part-time lecturer at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong, and the Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University. Her publications include academic articles in the refereed journal Asian Cinema, and critiques in Art World Magazine, HK01 and Stand News. She is the curator of Blown Away – Art, Science and Extreme Weather (Hong Kong, 2019) and Hong Kong in Poor Images (United States, 2020). She is involved as one of the art practitioners of Art Readers, as well as one of the selected emerging art professionals of Para Site in 2018.

Notes

1 ‘Handover art’ refers to the art created before, during or after the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong in this literature.

2 On the art activities undertaken during the Umbrella Movement, see Wan (2017).

3 Jeff Leung and Vivian Ting’s research project ‘Art as Social Interaction: Timeline of Hong Kong History and Hong Kong’s Socially Engaged Art’ identifies an iconic exhibition on the Hong Kong art scene, titled Museum 97: History, Community, Individual (1997) and shown at the Hong Kong Arts Center, as the beginning of socially engaged art in Hong Kong. Museum 97 involved the public in this art project by collecting people’s personal memories and their thoughts about the 1997 handover and presenting them in the exhibition. A few cultural workers in 2002 initiated the ‘Community Museum Project', which aimed to reveal folk creativity, society’s visual art culture and public culture by holding a series of exhibitions that showed objects collected from the public. Afterward, the forms of participation became more diverse, including cultural tours, workshops and performances.

4 The first rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ during the Umbrella Movement is captured in the following YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gi57ymUoEzk. It occurred by accident, when protesters in Mong Kok received complaints and insults from anti-Occupy activists. A protester was about to respond through a loudspeaker when the loudspeaker instead played ‘Happy Birthday’ due to an incorrect setting. Many protesters sang along. Later, singing this song became a means of disorientating counter-protesters.

5 Some suspected that the anti-Occupy protesters were controlled by the pro-Beijing camp. However, they did not directly express pro-Beijing points of view but instead accused the occupiers of disrupting traffic and damaging Hong Kong’s economy.

6 The participants ate more than 350 pieces of toast, and 292 questionnaires were collected.

7 The Individual Visit Scheme was introduced in 2003 to boost Hong Kong’s economy. It allowed tourists from mainland China to visit Hong Kong and Macau on an individual basis. However, the resulting increase in tourist numbers, smuggling, and birth tourism inconvenienced many Hong Kong people and aroused widespread resentment.

8 For the definition and principles of collaborative or cooperative, see the website of the International Co-operative Alliance, at https://www.ica.coop/en/whats-co-op/co-operative-identity-values-principles.

9 Personal communication, 23 February 2016.

10 Personal communication, 1 August 2017.

11 Personal communication, 23 February 2016.

12 Personal communication, 23 February 2016.

13 The Sunflower Student Movement (18 March to 10 April 2014) was driven by a coalition of students and civic groups protesting the government’s passing of the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement. The protesters believed that the trade pact with the People’s Republic of China would hurt Taiwan’s economy and leave it vulnerable to political pressure from Beijing (Jang 2013). They occupied the Taiwan Legislative Yuan overnight and demanded a clause-by-clause review of the agreement.

14 Sinophone is a neologism use to refer to ‘Chinese-speaking’, including China-originated languages and dialects. Mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong are all included in Sinophone regions. See Barmé, Geremie R. (2005), New Sinology: http://ciw.anu.edu.au/new_sinology/.

15 For the effect of globalization on mainland China and Hong Kong, see ‘Globalization@CUHK’ at http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/hkiaps/pprc/LS/globalization/2_c.htm.