11am. Rendezvous on the dot at the Fringe Club. We are all busy women with packed schedules and there are a lot of studios to visit, so we do not have a minute to lose. 11.45am. Still at the Fringe Club. The Samba group from Edinburgh have been doing a demonstration on the roof and we stayed to watch. Noon. Arrive at 288-290 Queen's Road, Central, the studio space of one of Hong Kong's growing gang of installation artists, Ban Cheong, only to be met by a boarded-up former office furniture store. 12.10pm. Find doorway to 288-290 just around the corner. Realise the Fringe brochure has omitted to give the floor. We decide to press all buzzers, starting at the ground floor, and say: 'Hello, are you an installation artist?' until we find him. 12.10-12.30pm. Ban welcomes us into his ground-floor studio. The usual artist's collection of oddities litter the space of about 350 square feet. Bookshelves crowded with everything but books, a large Wrigley's Gum shop sign hangs from the ceiling, and a laptop lies open on the desk. Ban is very welcoming and rather shy. We are the first members of the public to turn up. The space doubles as a photography studio: Ban supports himself as a commercial photographer. 'I hate it,' he says ruefully. In the corner is all that is left of his latest piece - two pairs of legs, cast in fibre glass, one side in trousers and one completely bare. Two male legs: no mistaking that. Ban showed this in a group show at Victoria Park last month. Vic gets straight to the point: 'What about the penis? Any censorship?' Apparently the park authorities were horrified but did not actually interfere with the display. The old men who walk in the park every day were fascinated, though. Hong Kong youth were not corrupted. 'Children laughed,' says Ban. 'They'd say: 'What's that, Dad?' ' He shows us his portfolio of beautifully photographed installation pieces. We admire them in respectful silence. I hope no one is expecting me to speak first. Vic cleverly asks Lisa to decode some of them for us. 'I don't try to decode,' says Lisa, who has been discussing this as part of her course at Goldsmiths College, London. 'I just look at the physicality, the materials. Then I ask myself: 'What do I get out of it?' If I still don't get it, and the artist is there, I ask him. But you can't always believe what they say. I know sometimes they make things up too.' I make frantic notes. Lisa says there is often a clue in the title. Ban's pieces bear such titles as 97 Peoples, 1997 Humanity and Wake Up. Lisa says that in the best pieces the viewers' appreciation is more important than the artist's intention, although sometimes the really great thing is when they coincide. 12.30pm. Taxi to car park. I am relieved when after confessing that I was dying to ask if the naked lower torso was modelled after anyone in particular, Vic and Lisa admit they were too. 'I would have done,' says Lisa. 'But I hardly know the guy.' 'You can't just say: 'Is that modelled on your naked body?' ' says Vic. We all wish we had, though. 1pm. Arrive at Cape Road, Chung Hom Kok, after small detour via Blue Pool Road. Tried to enter into the spirit of the thing by taking them via the scenic route (Stubbs Road) and accidentally took wrong turning. 1.10pm. The driveway to Hans Langner's huge house is so long it takes us some time to get there from the place where I left my car. When we arrive, Hans has just made tea. And got out some of his mum's home-made cookies. Have to look at some art first. What a blow. 1.11pm. Hans uses his home more as gallery than studio. The entrance and stairway are hung with fascinating pieces, a mixture of what turn out to be his preferred materials - concrete, nylon tights, driftwood and Asian bric-a-brac. We get a tantalising glimpse of a stunning view over towards Stanley through floor-to-ceiling windows in sparse, tasteful living room as Hans shows us his storage space, two rooms off the kitchen. 'I call this my secret room.' They are packed with previous artworks, birdcages, hangings, lots of tiny concrete faces, Russian dolls, boxes, more tights, and stone elephants. We are squeezed in and do not quite know what to say. Hans works upstairs on the roof so his boyfriend does not have to put up with the mess. The roof is littered with the results of dozens of forays around beaches, abandoned houses, junk markets of Cat Street and Shamshuipo: birdcages, a rusty watering can, pens, plastic animals, sea-smooth pieces of driftwood. In the corner is a man-sized metal birdcage. Birds are his latest obsession. He performed as a bird at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts last month, and a pointy-beaked stick-bird motif appears on everything: 'I cover myself with honey and feathers.' Feathers from a pillow, not live birds, he hastens to add. 'I used 80 kilos of feathers in my show last month. I hope people don't blame me for this bird flu.' We move down to a living room rather larger than Ban's entire studio. The walls are hung with Hans' work. He is a ceaseless collector, and his favourite materials are those another artist has already created. There are black stick birds scrawled across Chinese calligraphy, some Chinese prints, a book of old Hong Kong photographs, and, sweetly, the scribbles of lots of little kids who took part in the Youth Arts Festival. 'It's playful,' says Hans. 'All my work is playful. Children like it, and I think if children like something it must be good art.' Coming from a man who started his career as the rear end of Tina the Cooking Crocodile on German kiddies' TV, this makes a lot of sense. 1.50pm. Tea time! The cookies are great, tea isn't bad either. Hans shows us a catalogue from one of his Munich shows. 'Lovely catalogue,' says Lisa enviously. Her funds are so limited this year that invitation cards to her exhibition, Nightlights, have to be printed on name cards. Hans plans to open his work space for one day only, January 24. The Fringe has arranged for several school groups - and anyone else who is interested - to come along and see him create. Guests will be free to roam and explore the home-cum-gallery, but he will be performing and answering questions only on the roof. 'Perhaps you ought to mention it is outside, tell people to bring a sweater,' he says helpfully. 'Otherwise they might be cold. They might not enjoy it.' 1.59pm. Regretfully turn down offer of more tea and cookies and go back to the car. 'Great house,' says Vic, dreamily. 'Great pieces,' says Lisa. Great cookies, I think, guiltily. 2.20pm. Arrive at Taikoo Shing. K Y Chan has offered to meet us by the taxi rank. He says it is the easiest way to get to his place. 'Let's see who can spot the artist coming down the street,' says Vic. We are all looking completely the wrong way when a man with a loud shell-suit jacket and Chaplinesque moustache skips towards us. 'K Y!' shouts Lisa. 2.25pm. K Y lives on the 21st floor of a Taikoo Shing residential building. When we reach the door he begins mewling. His partner, Y K So, also an installation artist, recognises the magic password and opens the door. Inside is a very ordinary, domestic setting, except there is a two-metre metal sheet painted with the silhouette of Mao Zedong leaning against bookshelves, a human figure made of coathangers squeezed beside them, and several huge paintings resting by the wall. K Y is a gentle, good-natured man who sits down on the floor with us to talk through his newest inspiration, Buddhism. 'It's an academic study at the moment rather than a belief,' he explains. Last year many of his works had a political thread, just like Ban's, but he is no longer interested in that: 'I want to do something deeper.' The flat is only superficially ordinary. The top of the sofa is lined with cute cuddly toys; in an alcove just below them is a plaster-of-paris penis. The kitchen is normal Hong Kong galley size, but the storage corner is heaving with previous paintings, squeezed into the space. 3.15pm. Reality intrudes as we get lost trying to find our way out of the building. Vic and I have deadlines to meet, Lisa has artists to organise. We part sadly. Details of the Open Studio Programme are in the Fringe Festival brochure available from the Fringe
