Can a Shenzhen art project about the Cultural Revolution soothe Hong Kong’s political blues?
Showing at OCT Art & Design Gallery, ‘Our Red Pocket for Your Favourite Blue’ by art collective PSFO encourages visitors to connect and collaborate as during the Cultural Revolution – without the hatred and violence
News of Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo’s death on July 13 and concerns about the fate of his widow Liu Xia have sent shock waves around the world – a sobering reminder that China’s treatment of citizens who speak out against its authority is at odds with the principles of many countries who do business with it.
Meanwhile, the pro-democracy camp in Hong Kong is furious about the disqualification of four elected lawmakers. The recent heavy summer storms seem to reflect the general despair felt among those who fear that China’s overwhelming concern for national unity and stability will strip them of their individual rights and freedoms.
As values clash, an art project on the “unfree” side of the border promoting certain aspects of the Cultural Revolution would no doubt be anathema to many people in Hong Kong.
However, “Our Red Pocket for Your Favourite Blue” is in fact a quietly subversive, uplifting and humanistic project that attempts to help mainland China come to terms with a painful chapter in its recent history. It also proposes a new form of socialism that respects the collective, while giving space for the individual.
The exhibition and associated social media campaign ask members of the public to swap a nominal digital “red pocket” (a lucky gift of money) for one of the 1,000 blue items that complete strangers have donated to the OCT Art & Design Gallery in Shenzhen (the museum will pay for postage). The whole thing was conceived by Polit-Sheer-Form Office (PSFO), a Chinese artist group founded by five artists who grew up during the Cultural Revolution.