The Serendipity in the Street show in Tai Kwun throws light on the ways in which Central residents adapt to their surroundings. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
Governments and planners may have the best intentions when laying out city streets and urban amenities. Yet how people use their environments typically evolves over time and may upend the best-laid plans.
Tai Kwun’s latest exhibition, Serendipity in the Street, chronicles how residents in Hong Kong’s Central have adapted their environment to fit their current lifestyles. It utilizes the Modernologio method to observe and record daily activities, resulting in distinctive narratives that speak to the ways in which the neighborhood has changed over the years.
Modernologio rose from the ashes of the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake that leveled most of Tokyo. Subsequently, the architect Kon Wajiro conducted extensive field research to study the lives of displaced city folks living on its fringes. He developed Modernologio — the study of factors causing urban transformation through on-site sketches and observations.
Punch Hard Forever by Ocean Leung. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
“We used the Modernologio method for our research into Central due to the parallels between the repercussions of COVID-19 and the 1923 earthquake in Japan,” explained Brian Kwok, an associate professor at Hong Kong Polytechnic University’s School of Design and the leader of the research team for the exhibition.
During four separate sessions held over a month, Kwok guided 24 invited participants through Central. They walked its streets, flyovers, alleys, parks, markets, stairs and slopes to observe how people used these environments. The notes they made form the basis of the exhibition.
“The biggest difference between other Hong Kong districts and Central is that the latter is defined by its hilly terrain,” Kwok noted. “How do you deal with a shop on a steep slope? We saw that people were using many of the sit-out areas and small parks as their ad-hoc gym during the pandemic. That completely changed the function and intent of those spaces.
“We found an old commercial fridge hacked into a neighborhood library on a staircase landing. They encouraged residents to freely borrow and trade books. Again, that completely circumvented the original intent of the appliance as well as the area’s purpose.”
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Local artists responded to the observations about Central with site-specific installations. Multidisciplinary artist Nerve’s contribution, called Rhythms and placed near the exhibition entrance, is a barrage of Central’s sights and sounds captured in an 18-minute looping video beamed on three channels. Ocean Leung’s Punch Hard Forever is a mash-up of an Everlast punching bag and images of promotional campaigns, thus elevating the concept of exercise to a sculptural level.
Findings of Kwok’s studies are displayed on the mezzanine floor, which also has activity areas where visitors can flip through sketch pads or watch videos. The main exhibition hall explains Modernologio and presents neighborhood stories along with the artists’ responses.
Outdoor installations in Tai Kwun’s Prison Yard and Lower E Hall allow people to interact with street furniture in fun ways, as the components can be picked up and moved around.
“It is intended to be a very interactive show,” said Sarah Mui, the exhibition’s design partner and One Bite Design’s co-founder and design director.
Sarah Mui of One Bite Design says the exhibition is meant to be highly interactive. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
Online visitors can check out web-specific artworks. These include Mart, a homage to Central’s generic curtain wall buildings, created by electronic musician and audio-visual artist Choi Sai-ho. Sound artist and composer Annisa Cheung was inspired by Central’s harbor and the noises generated by the vessels for her audio work, Listening Etude by the Harbour, also available online.
Public workshops on topics of play spaces and Modernolgio are held throughout August. Serendipity in the Street runs through Oct 3.
“We hope to provide a holistic package of life on the street in Central,” said Anita Chung, Tai Kwun’s head of heritage.
If you go
Serendipity in the Street
Date: Until Oct 3
Venue: Block 01 Duplex Studio, Prison Yard and Lower E Hall, Tai Kwun, 10 Hollywood Road, Central.
