Kacey Wong
Originally educated as an architect, local installation and conceptual artist Kacey Wong has since merged art and architecture in projects such as “Wandering Homes,” where he mounted mobile homes on tricycles. He tells Leanne Mirandilla about his latest work, using architecture in art, and local politics.
HK Magazine: Can you tell us a bit about your works in this exhibit?
Kacey Wong: What I’m doing is trying to trace back to my own heritage and pick up on sayings that were in everybody’s mind [e.g. the text in the pictured sculpture, “Work hard, strive for it”]. But if you think more deeply about it, these kinds of values are no longer important. Working hard, having honor and duty and a good work ethic is a kind of 60s lifestyle, it’s almost gone. We can see our younger generation becoming so soft [laughs].
HK: You attended the Venice Architecture Biennale a few years ago. Would you say that’s your biggest accomplishment?
KW: Before, I thought it was. It was a childhood dream. For an actor, the highest level is going to the Oscars and for any architect, the highest level is to go to the Venice Architecture Biennale and represent your city and your country. But I no longer see that as one of the ultimate goals, because I went there and I was disappointed. I was just like a little product on a shelf in a supermarket rack, and I didn’t like that. This Sunday I’m going to go and support the hawkers in the streets because the government is cracking down on them due to the recent fire [on Fa Yuen Street]. For me, that’s an even more interesting and meaningful activity. But of course if you’ve never gone to the Biennale before you can’t tell, right? It’s still kind of like a utopia in the minds of creative people.
HK: Your background is in architecture, but now you’re an artist. What compelled you to make the switch?
KW: All my work is architecture; I’m just using art as an arena to practice my architecture. Doing it this way, there’s more freedom, and I don’t have to deal with the whole business or functional side. I can just play with the fantastic side, which is the concept. It’s more pure, it’s architecture with a capital A. The baggage of architecture is that you always have to balance romanticism and poetics with the functional and the budget and all the little details. Only the good architects get to do everything. Often by the time you’ve finished with all the pragmatic issues, you’ll be so dead tired that you just give up on other ideas.
HK: So do you think that concept trumps function?
KW: A lot of people might assume that art doesn’t have any sort of practical function, but there’s art function, which is to inspire, to awaken your soul, to make you look at things differently. My signage might not illuminate your room properly, but it makes you think about other things beyond its physicality.
HK: Are there any artists or architects who inspire you?
KW: Steven Holl is one of my favorites. He’s very poetic and very much in tune with traditional Chinese culture, like how we build gazebos to watch falling leaves, and pavilions to look at the moon.
HK: As someone involved in social activism, what do you think of Hongkongers’ political attitudes now?
KW: Right now, I actually think youngsters are getting much better. You can see ever since the Star Ferry demolition that the Post-80s people really want to believe in these local values. Hong Kong is, in a way, the freest city in the whole of China, and freedom is sometimes something you have to fight for, it won’t be easily given. This is our hometown and we should be proud of it and fight for it. We should come out and participate in politics and social movements. Although right now it’s taking an unfortunate sidetrack towards self-discrimination—local Hongkongers against the mainlanders. I see that as a very sad turn.