Monster cockroach, Celine Dion and ex-Chinese leader Hu Jintao make this art show a must-see
- An Opera for Animals is on show over two floors at Para Site’s space in Quarry Bay
- Artists featured include Candice Lin, Samson Young and Adam Nankervis
In contrast, this year’s “An Opera for Animals” is a joy to navigate, and the strong selection makes this variation of “all the world’s a stage” both enthralling and timely.
The opera reference is a comment on how our world is inundated with artifice and post-truths, and the many animalistic images deployed in the show point to a hankering for the atavistic as we lose faith in technology as saviour.
There is also an anti-imperialist message: opera is an inherently Western concept forced upon non-Western art forms such as xiqu, which in English is known as Chinese opera, according to Para Site director Cosmin Costinas, who co-curated the show with Claire Shea.
There is enough mischief and innuendo spread over the show’s two floors for it to become one big diatribe. Visitors first come face-to-face with a mirrored stage as intensely lit as an operating theatre, on which a giant, silver carcass of a cockroach, made by artist Candice Lin, is lying on its back.