TeamLab at Hong Kong Art Week, and more: 6 pieces inviting audience participation at Art Central and beyond – from those giant ovoids floating in Victoria Harbour to HKMoA’s ‘Harbour Wonder’ installations

Mar 28 , 2024

Become part of the art: 6 pieces, at Art Central and beyond, inviting audience participation this Art Week – from TeamLab’s giant, colourful ovoids in the sea to a scarlet skirt you can crawl under. Photo: Eugene Lee

Despite its name, for the past few years Art Central has actually been held in Wan Chai – just a stone’s throw from the larger Art Basel flagship, on a neighbouring floor of the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (HKCEC). It finally lives up to its moniker again in 2024, however, with a resounding return to the Central Harbourfront – where the event was last staged in 2019 – busting out of the confines of the HKCEC, and back firmly in the heart of Hong Kong’s big-city bustle.

Taking place from March 28 to 31, Art Central is showcasing debutant galleries, undiscovered artists, striking sculptures and installations, and avant-garde video art. There are also talks bringing together artists and curators, tours in English and Cantonese (including some for children), and three pieces of performance art.

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The latter invite audience participation – as do a number of outdoor exhibitions running concurrently with, and beyond, Art Central. To celebrate being back in the centre of things, here are six happenings that let you become part of the art.

1. Art-is-Here Picnic – Enoch Cheng

Artist Enoch Cheng, Art Central 2024’s curatorial director, whose Art-is-Here is being performed at the fair. Photo: Handout

Created by Art Central’s curatorial director – who is also an artist in his own right – Art-is-Here invites the audience to join a “picnic” with local arts and culture practitioners, and engage in discussions that go to the heart of conceptual art. The interactive event takes the form of unannounced, “guerilla-style” performances held at irregular times in various locations over the four days of the fair.

2. A Sultry World – Norico Sunayama

Sunayama Norico’s A Sultry World blurs the boundaries between public and personal space. Photo: Handout

At this year’s Art Central, Japanese dance and cabaret veteran Norico Sunayama introduces her performance art piece, A Sultry World – a favourite of the global art circuit going back to the 90s. The work sees a woman sitting atop a three-metre platform in a velvet dress, her enormous scarlet skirt draped all over the ground beneath and around her.

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The public is invited to literally crawl under the heavily draped fabric and enter a cocoon-like space, infused with the scent of lavender. In this way, Sunayama’s work challenges participants to ponder the blurring of boundaries between public and personal space.

3. Planting Tastes – Scarlet Yu

Scarlet Yu’s Planting Tastes combines experimental storytelling with culinary exploration. Photo: Handout

Hong Kong-born, Berlin-based multidisciplinary artist Scarlet Yu invites visitors to Art Central to participate in what she describes as “culinary choreography”. Planting Tastes is designed to appeal to all the senses. The experimental storytelling performance takes the audience on an exploration of the role food plays in shaping our cultures and communities.

4. Harbour Wonder – Chan Wai-lap and Tsoi Wai-kuen

Local artist Chan Wai-lap’s Some of Us are Looking at the Stars, part of the “Harbour Wonder” exhibition in the forecourt of the Hong Kong Museum of Art, in Tsim Sha Tsui. Photo: Dickson Lee

Beyond Art Central, two large-scale public installations have arisen in the forecourt of the Hong Kong Museum of Art (HKMOA), inspired by the venue’s waterfront location and on display until April 7. Chan Wai-lap presents Some of Us are Looking at the Stars, an 11-metre mock-up of a swimming pool. A space for meditation and introspection in the company of strangers, swimming pools can function as sanctuaries in which the public and private worlds intersect. Fittingly, Chan – the 2019 winner of the Hong Kong Arts Development Council’s Young Artist (Visual Arts) award – invites visitors to enter, and avail themselves of a sun lounger and parasol.

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Another feted young talent, Tsoi Wai-kuen was listed among architecture and design magazine Perspective’s 40 Under 40 in 2022, and worked on Zaha Hadid’s Jockey Club Innovation Tower project. The award-winning architect’s public art piece, A Symphony of Delights, consists of six installations in the HKMOA forecourt that combine the architectural features of iconic buildings on both sides of the harbour, including the Cultural Centre, Convention and Exhibition Centre, and IFC. Visitors are invited to sit on the playful “landmarks” and claim them as a space for rest.

5. Art@Harbour 2024 – various

TeamLab’s Continuous installation, at Tamar Park in Admiralty, features some 200 five-metre-tall ovoids, both on land and water. Photo: Handout

Another big-budget project parachuting in for Art Month, in collaboration with large-format digital art collective TeamLab, the Leisure and Cultural Services Department is presenting its annual Art@Harbour outdoor project on both sides of Victoria Harbour through June 2.

At Tamar Park and along Central Promenade, TeamLab: Continuous features hundreds of luminous ovoids emitting colours and sounds that change based on visitor interactions. Also at Central Promenade, “Science in Art”, from Laab Architects and artist Dylan Kwok, features two interactive installations that draw inspiration from nature and the properties of light.

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On the other side of Victoria Harbour are more outdoor art installations and digital art facades at the Tsim Sha Tsui clock tower, K11 Musea promenade, and the Sino LuminArt facade on the Tsim Sha Tsui East waterfront.

6. “Park Solo” – Debe Sham

See-Saw, part of Debe Sham’s “Park Solo” exhibition at the Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre in Mid-Levels. Photo: Handout

Bring out your inner steampunk at the Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre through September 16. Debe Sham’s quirky little exhibition, “Park Solo”, presents elaborate mechanical installations that visitors are encouraged to get busy with. Inspired by wind-up toys and playground equipment, Sham has created an eccentric space that will occupy both you and your little ones. She hopes through this interactive work to “unleash the boundless possibilities of playfulness”.

Art

The city is alive with art! Don’t miss the public artworks around the harbour – including the Insta-viral TeamLab: Continuous and the ‘Harbour Wonder’ giant ‘swimming pool’ by the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront
At Central Harbourfront for the first time since 2019, Art Central has performance pieces inviting audience participation by artists Scarlet Yu, Norico Sunayama and Enoch Cheng