FOR MOST LOCAL independent art curators, it's a jungle out there. 'The environment is very hostile,' says Oscar Ho Hing-kay, one of the veterans in the field. A lack of space, money, know-how and support constantly dog 'free agents' who prefer to show art on their own terms. However, a new generation of curators is rising to these challenges, and their efforts are paying off in a host of current and upcoming projects.
Independent curator April Ma Siu-ying aimed high when she collaborated with the Hong Kong America Centre to stage an exhibition of works by 30 local artists at the Fulbright China Research Forum. The event, which runs from tomorrow until Friday, aims to give the forum's scholars a greater understanding of Hong Kong and China, partially through its art and culture.
Ma jumped at the chance to introduce the group to local artists, and proposed a three-week exhibition involving prominent local names such as Ho Siu-kee and Lukas Tam Wai-ping. The plan was rejected by one of the biggest privately run art spaces in town, however, because it 'didn't fit their direction'.
Undaunted, Ma put together a less ambitious one-day programme to be shown in industrial Chai Wan, which is a long way from the galleries of SoHo.
One of Ma's frequent collaborators, artist Carol Lee Mei-kuen, agreed to hold a temporary exhibition in her fifth-floor studio, as did a few other artists studios in the same building, and the 10 Chancery Lane Gallery Annex, run by Katie de Tilly.
Curators are finding space for their projects in unexpected places, Ma says. Several have learned the importance of 'thinking outside the white cube'.