Hong Kong filmmaker Ellen Pau on embracing her identity as an artist, a woman and a lesbian
- The visual artist says she has felt close to death since childhood, when she was plagued by asthma
- She has maintained her job as a radiographer throughout her creative career
Near-death experiences: My father was a doctor and worked at Grantham Hospital, and my mother was a midwife. I was born in 1961 and my younger brother and I lived with our parents in the hospital quarters near what is now the Aberdeen Tunnel. In those days, there was no tunnel, just a hillside, and it was a quiet place to grow up.
There were six units in the building, but only two families living there and aside from my brother and I there were no other children. I was quite happy to play by myself or ride my bicycle. When I was seven, I got a camera and started taking photos. I had asthma, so during school sports lessons I’d sit outside the field and watch my classmates. I’d have lots of different thoughts in my head. It led me to feel I was different from them and weird.
At weekends I often had to stay at home in bed because my asthma became serious. My parents got used to it and would go and visit my aunt for four or five hours and leave some medicine for me on the bedside table. During that time, I’d sometimes get really sick and afraid. I had to sit up to breathe. If I laid down, I’d see the idea of death projected on the ceiling. At those moments, I couldn’t even open my eyes. I just felt I was different, I felt I was close to death.
Chaos theory: In secondary school, I got an inhaler, which made things a little easier, but the asthma never went away. When I moved out of my parents’ house and was living independently, I was wheeled into A&E many times, and twice I had to be resuscitated.
I quickly realised that film production was a man’s world. If you are a woman and want to be a director you have to argue with them
I went to St Stephen’s Girls’ College. I was the only person making mix tapes and my classmates remember me as a DJ. I loved physics. It’s a poetic medium and quantum physics is the most romantic part, where you see the world as chaos, there’s a lot of uncertainty. Every atom is just a possibility, nothing is real, there is no real world – I think this idea is crazy, I like it.
I was interested in medicine and wanted to do something with the body. I felt as though I’d been so close to death, I wanted to work in that area, close to life and death. My father said the best job in a hospital is a radiographer, so I went to Hong Kong Polytechnic University to study radiography.
Making movies: At Polytechnic I joined the film club. I quickly realised that film production was a man’s world. If you are a woman and want to be a director you have to argue with them. Video was just coming out and I bought a video camera in Tsim Sha Tsui, in the tourist area.
I joined the Super 8 workshop on campus and enjoyed the editing process. I went into an empty room, hung up all the footage and counted the frames. There were 34 frames in a second. I’d think of myself as a musician and counted the beats as I edited. People liked the camera work, the editing, the music, the story. I was just doing the things that I do in my head. I wasn’t convinced that I was an artist, it was much later in life that I began to see myself as one.
An artist from Hong Kong: During my studies, I joined the experimental theatre company Zuni Icosahedron and, in 1986, I set up Videotage, a small independent artist collective. It was special at that time because there is no place in Hong Kong to present video art, so we tried to be the first, but it was difficult to find works. The first few years were difficult, and I had to encourage friends to make videos.
After five years, I began archiving the work and started a collection called “The Best of Videotage”. My videos are atmospheric. I use objects, an exterior landscape to project your interior. It’s abstract, for me its poetry. Danny Yung (Ning-tsun), the artistic director and founder of Zuni Icosahedron, suggested I apply for a Starr Prize from the Asian Cultural Council to go to America.
I applied and got it and, in 1992, I spent a year in New York, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco. In Hong Kong, there was no centre showing video art, but in America people wanted to see my films and I was introduced as “an artist from Hong Kong”. In New York, I spent a lot of time watching classic and master works from the Donnell Library.
Camera shy: When I came back from America, there were more people interested in video art and there was the response of our cultural identity towards China. A lot of people in arts were building or inventing our cultural identity. Hong Kong was getting more attention in the run-up to the handover and, through the 1990s, I received four or five invitations a year to present my work in Europe and America.
In the late 90s, we began the Microwave Festival, an annual event for new media that explores art, technology and culture. I’ve never liked being in the spotlight. Whenever there was an opening, I’d always do my duty helping set everything up and then take a taxi and go to my job at the hospital. Whenever they wanted a director to officiate an opening, I was not there. I didn’t feel comfortable going out and talking, I’d rather be the one serving the drinks.
Lone stranger: I’d known I was a lesbian since secondary school. I had some classmates who I thought were really beautiful and I wanted to be around them and to serve them, but I didn’t have a lesbian relationship until I was 26. She was my colleague at Queen Mary Hospital and a nurse, but she resigned and followed her dream to become a dancer. That first relationship was very important and eye-opening for me.
I’ve had a lot of girlfriends, but mostly I’m a loner. I’ve always had the feeling that if I go into a relationship, I will lose my creativity because my girlfriend will take up all my time. Time is precious for me, I’ve always had the feeling I could die at any moment, so I have to use every second I have. I’ve avoided relationships, I feel quite all right to be by myself.
I am here: I only began to see myself as an artist in 2001, when I was one of three artists – and the only woman – invited to represent Hong Kong at the Venice Biennale. I decided to embrace my lesbian identity and wore a striped Italian suit.
The two gallery receptionists, beautiful Italian ladies with good figures, stood on either side of me and I embraced them. I felt so playful and happy to have that moment – showing the best of my work in Venice and having two beautiful ladies next to me. “Hey,” I wanted to say, “I am an artist, I am a woman, and I am a lesbian. I’m here.”
Candid on camera: For me, my art is how I communicate with the world. I don’t like talking to people and don’t usually have people around me, so the camera is my only friend to talk to, my window to communicate my inner world to the outer world. I will retire from the hospital next year. I’ll be 60 and I’m now thinking about where I go from here.
I think that perhaps I will talk more, I will take the spotlight because I don’t have to chase two jobs and don’t have to serve. I hope to do more performance work and write something, which is something I find challenging.
