Simulated Alternate Realities 1a Space, Cattle Depot Artist Village Until Nov 10
While photography may seem to have a certain direct connection to the 'real' world, it always presents us with a relationship meditated by the lens. Curated by Davina Lee, Simulated Alternate Realities features work by 13 local and international artists that focus on a variety of strategies used to bend, shape or fabricate this association.
From David Boyce's...A poorly remembered childhood, presenting us with fragile, tiny and haunting scenes from his past to Evangelo Costadimas and Syren Johnstone's video installation, Displacement #3, that vertiginously maps a soon to be lost Hong Kong market space, Lee's exhibition presents a broad but nonetheless compelling selection of work.
For example, Hiram To's small installation, Once-Upon, showing a set of three-sealed vinyl records, all related to a culturally imagined Hong Kong from the 1960s, provides a unique take on the show's premise.
In another direction Noel Manalili's This dress suits me (right), playfully intervenes in and, to some degree subverts, the otherwise conventionally representational act of portraiture through cross-dressing men. And this tactic of dressing up and acting out is continued in the heavily staged and obscurely narrative work of both Riddick Douglas Ning and Nick Cheuk.
Yet, there are some works which potentially stretch the curatorial premise to the point of breaking. Graeme Cooper's Breathe, a series of children photographed wearing oxygen masks, seems to have far more to do with a heavy-handed critique of environmental issues than alternate realities.