The Collector | Luggage-based art for Hong Kong’s turbulent times – two projects capture the zeitgeist

“Six Briefcases” and the Suitcase Institute are two art projects in Hong Kong that, by sheer coincidence, have captured the current zeitgeist of restlessness and trepidation in the city by commissioning local artists to make portable art.

Let’s face it. It’s not so much “fight or flight” in the city now, but “fight and flight”. While the cameras are trained on the fallout of the government’s extradition bill, there is also talk among Hong Kong families, businesses and investors about emigrating or reallocating assets to places considered more stable.

This wasn’t quite the context a year ago, when Willem Molesworth and his wife, Ysabelle Cheung, came up with the idea for the Suitcase Institute. Molesworth, de Sarthe Gallery's Hong Kong director, and Cheung, a writer and editor, were trying to address that perennial Hong Kong problem: lack of space and high rents.

“We were trying to think of a way to do something for the local art scene that doesn’t come into conflict with my work at de Sarthe. We don’t have much of a budget and we know how hard it is to find exhibition space in Hong Kong. That’s how the suitcase idea came about,” the ebullient Molesworth tells The Collector as the first “suitcase art” they commissioned continues its tour as a self-housing pop-up mini exhibition.

Hong Kong-based musician and multidisciplinary artist Shane Aspegren’s Coming In Going Out Coming Out Going In (2019) is installed in a sturdy Zero Halliburton suitcase. Inside, a collection of found and handmade objects are displayed on fabric printed with Moiré patterns, a geometrical design with fascinating visual effects.

When in “exhibition mode” – whether at Tai Kwun, a pedestrian bridge in Wan Chai or Regent’s Park in London – “visitors” are asked to pick up the objects and follow “suggestive incantations” to try and find a moment of peace in the middle of the city. A number of other local artists are also working on suitcases and these may pop up anywhere, any time, Molesworth says.