Some things in Hong Kong are quantifiable. Our city has more or less seven million people, 7,685 high-rise buildings and more than 18,000 taxis. We consume 320,200 tonnes of rice a year (46kg per person), and each drink 1.36kg of tea.
But how many butcher's lamps are there? Considering their presence at every wet market and street vendor's stall in Hong Kong, their number is difficult to determine. They are so ubiquitous, in fact, that most of us barely register their existence.
Yet these humble red shades are so recognisably a part of Hong Kong, they've been reincarnated as an interior design art form. Hong Kong designer and G.O.D. founder Douglas Young Chi-chiu did it with his Hong Kong Classic Butcher's Lamp Multiplied series, launched in June 2008, and now an entire exhibition is being devoted to the humble shade. As interpreted by 14 leading local and overseas designers, this icon is being celebrated in the unique, collaborative Butchers' Deluxe, an exhibition scheduled to run concurrently with Business of Design Week (November 29 to December 4), after which they will be sold for charity.
The exhibition is curated by Johan & Jacob, a Hong Kong-based design collective. Participating designers include Britons Michael Young (who has been based in Hong Kong for the past few years) and Max Lamb; Dutch designers Danny Fang, Jurgen Bey and Richard Hutten; Australian Ben McCarthy; Adrian Wong (US/Hong Kong); Johan Persson of Sweden; and Hong Kong designers Alan Chan Yau-kin, Sean Kunjambu, Freeman Lau Siu-hong, Winnie Lui and Dorothy Tang.
Designers were given one shade each (either red, traditionally used in wet markets and by butchers, or white, which illuminate pawn shops) and a month to put their mark on this piece of Hong Kong street culture. 'The result is a collective exhibition where visitors will have the chance to own a one-of-a-kind lighting piece, crafted by some of the world's best designers,' curator Johan Persson says.
The seeds of the idea began forming when Australian designer McCarthy, who moved to Hong Kong three years ago, fell for the red lamps he saw in wet markets. McCarthy tracked down a couple for his own flat, and had the plastic shades electroplated to give them a golden mirror finish. That process turned the lamps from industrial to decorative, and he gave his creation a name: (King) Midas. Through discussions with Persson, the notion of challenging some of the world's brightest design talent, home-grown and imported, to reinterpret this classic Hong Kong icon took form.
