Memories are made of this
Swimming, a goat, Coca-Cola…these and other recollections make up Beijing-born artist Song Dong's 'for Hong Kong only' exhibition, as Kevin Kwong discovers
So the world didn't end on December 21, as doomsayers predicted it would, based on the end of the Mayan calendar cycle. Which is good in many ways, not least because it allows artist Song Dong to honour his winter solstice promise to invite the Hong Kong public to an exhibition he has created especially and exclusively for them.
Co-presented by the Asia Art Archive and Mobile M+ of the West Kowloon Cultural District, 36 Calendar is a collection of 432 colour book-like sketches and essays (comprising 59,000 Chinese characters in total) based on the Beijing-born contemporary artist's own "memories of encounters with different people, objects and events".
The exhibition, at ArtisTree in Taikoo Place, is the result of the Archive's 2011 artist-in-residence programme with Song, and marks his first solo outing in this city.
They [swimmers] told me that life [in Hong Kong] was really good, that many people had swum there already
Also on show are "responses" to Song's works from more than 400 members of the public (aged between six and 86) recruited by the Archive. These volunteers were asked to do whatever they wanted with the sketches based on the text Song wrote for each entry. So some coloured them while others erased the original work with their own drawings or paintings.
Hong Kong - its history and, in particular, its pop culture - holds a special place in Song's memories. There are numerous references to this city throughout the exhibition, including one piece that recalls his first visit here in April 1996 when he took part in a group exhibition at the Arts Centre curated by Oscar Ho Hing-kay. But his first impression of this city dates back long before that.
In the summer of 1978, Song, then 11 years old, met two youngsters from Guangzhou who were keen swimmers. The pair said they had to train hard so they could, one day, swim to Hong Kong. "They told me that life there was really good, that many people had swum there already," the artist recalls.
That same year, Song also saw a Hong Kong movie that "informed us about trends like bell-bottomed pants, huge sunglasses and long hair". Until then, he had not realised that "there was another way of life" other than the one he was living on the mainland.