The CollectorA river runs through it: Hong Kong exhibition looks at the countries shaped by the mighty Mekong

The Mekong River unites countries by virtue of its length. Originating in China’s Qinghai province, the 4,350km river is shared by five other countries before it joins the South China Sea, south of Ho Chi Minh City, in Vietnam. But it is also a source of great division. Its course forms parts of the borders between China, Myanmar, Laos and Thailand, and countries upstream seem to have little regard for how their hydroelectric dams along the river affect ecosystems and livelihoods further south.

This tension and the indelible links created by shared folklore and topography form the basis of a new exhibition in aid of Children of the Mekong, a charity founded in 1958. “Mekong – New Mythologies”, which opened at the Hong Kong Arts Centre on May 4, features 36 works by 20 artists and artist duos. There are representatives from all six countries that the Mekong flows through, as well as other places where societies are shaped both by how different they are from their immediate neighbour, and how similar: Hong Kong, Singapore and Pakistan.

Heman Chong, born in Malaysia but raised in Singapore, has been working on a series of abstract paintings called Things that Remain Unwritten since 2013. Ten new works in the series are on show here and the blue canvases smeared with white paint and covered in amorphous shapes may well be speaking of the Mekong region’s fertility and fluidity.

Some artists allude to how, in folklore, mysteri­ous beings coexist with humans, in stories passed from one gener­ation to another, even though, in reality, humans have little regard for other species.

Thai film director Apichatpong Weerasethakul, best known for Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010), created a magical character called the Mekong Mud Man to symbolise his concerns about the ecological threats facing the river and the people living along it. In Richard Streitmatter-Tran’s installation The Jungle Book – The Terrain of the Real Fake (2009), a Mekong giant catfish is seen washed ashore and tied up just as Gulliver was in Lilliput. The endangered fish can grow to about three metres and is the subject of numerous folk tales across Southeast Asia.