Representations of sexuality have long been taboo in Hong Kong. Witness the recent censorship furore over Dame Elizabeth Frink's New Man sculpture. It reveals how this is a city often ill at ease with itself.
Recent months have seen several exhibitions and theatre productions addressing sexuality, both gay and straight.
In the Fringe Festival, there was Two or Three Men I Would Like To Pick Up, But Not Quite Work, theatre Resolu's Broken Edges of a Mirror, Edward Lam's Wildlife in the Fast Lane and current works by Ellen Pau and Jimmy Style Branch 3. Installation artist Ellen Pau's brand of subversive sexuality is highlighted with her wall statement for The Great Movement, at the Goethe Institut until April 24.
Quoting feminist theorist Julia Kristeva, she spells out in large letters: 'I expel myself. I spit myself out. I abject myself with the same motion through which I claim to establish myself.' Below is a small video viewfinder where one can find a gesturing hand marked by a red spot.
Pau's video installation inside is a projection of a lone island with a lighthouse where a faint beacon turns ceaselessly. The grainy 1950s monochrome footage is accompanied by a foghorn.
At the opening, dancer Dick Wong collaborated with Pau and performed a piece where he swirled like a skater on thin ice and slowly collapsed on the floor.
Pau's earlier pieces include an installation where in a narrow alley filled with rocks, we find tiny video projections of her rolling and struggling.
