The Pao Gallery, Hong Kong Arts Centre Tomorrow to August 19
It took Colan Ho Ka-chiu, Mak Siu-fung and Ming Cheung two years to realise their exhibition plans, but the toughest challenge came earlier this week, when they tried to install their centrepiece, a fibreglass sculpture measuring 1.8 metres by three metres and weighing about 130kg, in the Pao Gallery at the Hong Kong Arts Centre.
'We [mechanically] lifted the piece to the fourth-floor terrace before manually carrying it up a level via the stairs,' Ho says. 'We also needed to take it apart in order to fit the doorway.'
The sculpture - comprising three, robot-like figures sitting around a spaceship - is called Memories of the Future, which is also the title of the exhibition. It's among about 40 fibreglass and bronze pieces on display that 'revisit the artists' past loves, while at the same time mapping out their future creativity'.
Although many of the sculptures resemble commercial anime or manga action figures, Ho says the works also represent the collective memory of artists born in the 1970s. 'As contemporary artists, we want to create works that reflect our culture, upbringing and the environment in which we grew up in. So, these pieces are more than just products, but documentation of our culture at the time, which was the 1970s and 80s.'
The 35-year-old graduate of the Hong Kong Chingying Institute of Visual Arts says the spaceship in Memories of the Future was inspired by society's obsession with UFOs and extraterrestrials during the 70s. Other pieces such as Cheung's Giant Robot and Mak's Recharge are also influenced by the pop culture - a fusion of Japanese manga/anima and western comics at the time.
