Goethe-Institut Hongkong Mar 29-May 7, Mon-Fri, 10am-8pm, Sat, 2pm-6pm
Magdalen Wong's latest installation exhibition - featuring sculptures, video and photographs - is all about exploring the complexity of the ordinary through altering and repositioning objects and images.
Its title, Shift, 'comes from my working process. In my work, the objects usually remain what they are - I rarely change or reconstruct the objects, but rather I alter the way we see or experience the object by simply shifting our perspective, so that what is familiar to us may become something curious again', says Wong, who is on an Asia Pacific Artists Fellowship in the residency programme at the Goyang Art Studio in South Korea.
One of her works, Peeled (below) - a series of four photographs of a pink, almost flesh-like, ball-shaped object - serves as an example of her efforts to present common objects in a different light.
'They are in fact photographs of watermelons with their skin peeled,' Wong says. 'The watermelon is a fruit familiar to us. However, simply taking away its identifying visual trait - its green skin - and then framing it, or rather, validating its significance in a visual art form, the photograph, allows us to look at it in a different way.'
Cluster, made by grouping star-shaped stickers on a reflective surface, shows how simple items can be transformed into a sculpture.
