Mobile exhibition to hit the road

An exhibition featuring six items of installation art will be staged next month throughout Yau Ma Tei by the West Kowloon Cultural District's M+ Museum's curators - with rigid rules on Hong Kong's land use being overcome in the process.

It will be the first of a series of mobile exhibitions organised by the curators until the museum proper opens in about 2017. The Mobile M+: Yau Ma Tei exhibition will be a 'story of Hong Kong culture', featuring different art forms by Hong Kong artists at venues as varied as shops, offices and even beneath flyovers.

'The exhibition will merge art with everyday life,' said Stella Fong Wing-yan, one of the seven curators. 'Most people who pass by may not be aware that it is an art exhibition, and may be surprised when they find out.'

Five of the six pieces of art were commissioned for the exhibition. Searching for venues was part of the process in creating the art pieces, which include digital installations, performance and publications.

Lars Nittve, the museum's executive director, said mobile art exhibitions had been part of cultural life in Europe for decades but were seldom seen in Hong Kong.

'It's very different to curating in a defined art space. Here, you're in other people's domain, which makes it very interesting,' he said. 'You can't intrude, and have to respect the neighbourhood.'

A big difference Nittve found in staging mobile exhibitions here, compared with Europe, was Hong Kong's land use regulations. Places defined as shops or flats were not permitted to stage exhibitions, which were defined as entertainment, he said.