{Inter}Viewing Possession with Leung Chi Wo, Hong Kong artist at Asia Art Archive – interview

HONG KONG ARTIST INTERVIEW

A viewing station of Leung Chi Wo's video work exhibition at the Asia Art Archive, entitled {Inter}Viewing Possession

The remarkable Hong Kong artist Leung Chi Wo explores the idea of possession and value in his fascinating installation exhibiton entitled {Inter}Viewing Possession, curated by Carl Cheng Chi-Ming and Livia Garcia.

Leung Chi Wo is a highly active artist in the Hong Kong community,  a co-founder of the internationally significant Para-Site Art Space, who graduated from the Chinese University of Hong Kong with an MFA in 1997.

He represented Hong Kong in the Venice Biennale in 2001, and has worked in the arts abroad in both New York and Italy.

Despite this, he says, “When I was young I never thought about becoming an artist, and even after studying art, I didn’t think I would become one.” He describes his art as a “contradiction of ideas,” and that he “likes to explore things that are not meant to be.”

Watch a video interview of Leung Chi Wo here on ChoochooTV Media Entertainment, which posts arts related video programs on [art]attack, Hong Kong web television.

His installation exhibit at the Asia Art Archive is comprised of 8 viewing stations, each similar in outward appearance to a telescope.

Regarding his process and intentions for {Inter}Viewing Possession, he says:

I want to express the idea of viewing, and possession is an association to the location we are at. We are situated on Possession Street, and close to here is Possession Point where the first Colonials arrived. Possession is also something we can all associate with. We interviewed people around this area regarding their possessions, objects that they treasure. During the interview, you are actually exercising your thinking about what you learn from the interview. I transcribed the interviews into a monologue. Then I interviewed the interviewers about their point of view when conducting the interviews, turning it into the second set of monologues, and combined it into the audio for this set of works. During the process, I want to explore what ‘value’ is and how to describe it. In my artwork, I want to put more thought into the context, when the artwork is exhibited, it should be very closely related to the environment. I hope the presentation of the installation can work with the situation it is in. The environment should also involve the audience, what you are showing the audience. What I meant by the environment doesn’t necessarily mean physical space, we must also consider the historical or cultural space and also the habitation of the people in that area.

The video works from this exhibition are also available for viewing on Youtube, and can be accessed through the links below.

{Inter}Viewing Possession- Video Channel 1 (Cantonese)

{Inter}Viewing Possession- Video Channel 2 (English)

{Inter}Viewing Possession- Video Channel 3 (English)

{Inter}Viewing Possession- Video Channel 4 (Cantonese)

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