One City Two Coins by Giraffe Leung.
As Hong Kong hits another turning point in history, artists look to the past for an answer to the city’s future
You are what you eat, and my insatiable crave for spicy food over the past year tells me that something inside me might not be quite right. The idea of having a burning sensation lingering at the tip of my tongue was never my definition of enjoyment. The traditional Hong Kong-style Cantonese cuisine my mother cooks is all about the freshness of ingredients, a sense of harmony cultivated by the complexity of flavours. My food has always been about restoring my inner balance and nourishing my soul, not causing shock or excessive stimulation.
But this has changed dramatically in the span of merely 12 months. Now I have an appetite for excessively piquant dishes. The more fiery it tastes, the better. If it’s not a cooked dish, spicy crisps and canned sardines soaked in chilly oil also do the trick. My body needs the tongue-numbing spices not only to paralyse my taste buds temporarily; I need them to numb my feelings of despair and my uncontrollable anxiety over an uncertain future, to hold me back from spiraling downward into an emotional blackhole.
It is a naive thought, however, especially when I am confronted on a day-to-day basis with the reality that I have witnessed in the streets, on the news live-streamed and even the artworks I’ve encountered over the past year in Hong Kong. I am constantly reminded of the agony of helplessly watching how my hometown had descended into turmoil, the collapse of a free society and its systems that made us proud. The signs and symbols are everywhere, and no hot dishes are strong enough to take the misery away.
For example, at May’s opening of the Asia Society Hong Kong Centre’s Chantal Miller Gallery exhibition Next Act: Contemporary Art from Hong Kong, running until September 27, my body froze when I came across Andrew Luk’s sculpture Echo Chorus — Speculation. The piece is part of a set of three modelled after the boundary stones found in the historic site that was formerly the Explosives Magazine of the old Victoria Barracks. Each of them was made of different materials: ice, copper and charcoal. The ice pillar was melting fast despite the blasting air-conditioning; the charcoal one was solemn and dark; the copper one was covered with texts made of die cut vinyl stickers, which had an eye-catching “The Future of Hong Kong” written across one of its facades.
Luk told me during the show’s opening that the texts on the copper pillar were in fact taken from the archival documents of an Asia Society meeting that took place in 1984, the year when Britain and China signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration that sealed Hong Kong’s fate by ending the British colonial rule over the city and beginning its new life as a Special Administrative Region under the Chinese sovereignty on July 1, 1997.
“The Future of Hong Kong” was a topic of discussion from the past, but the past has caught up with the present too soon and in the most distressing manner. Ongoing political unrest and Beijing’s recent imposition of the sweeping new national security law have put the city right in the eye of an unprecedented diplomatic storm between China and the United States, one that could be swirling out of control at any minute. Hong Kong’s future is at stake again, 36 years on since that Asia Society meeting, except that this time it is not just about Hong Kong anymore; events happening in the city is like the placement of invisible boundary stones, marking the lines and tracks that will shape the course of development of global geopolitics in the future. We are witnessing history as it unfolds.
But beyond the grand scheme of things, what is left for us ordinary individuals as we are looped back into facing the daunting question of “The Future of Hong Kong” that tormented a generation of Hongkongers 36 years ago? Are we now here to resolve the unresolved issues from the past?
When the past becomes the present
After a traumatic year of witnessing, in person or via live streaming, the familiar streets of Hong Kong — a sophisticated, civilised and peaceful international financial centre, a global art hub — turned into a semi-battlefield, where riot police’s tear gas and rubber bullets crossed fire with Molotov cocktails from black-clad protesters, followed by Beijing’s imposition of the national security law that tightens its grip on the city’s freedoms and puts it at the forefront of the diplomatic row between of the world’s biggest economies, I can’t help asking the very fundamental question: how did we get here?
Some artists in Hong Kong seem to have looked to the past for an answer to this question. Young artist Giraffe Leung’s recent work One City Two Coins is pointing in this direction. First appearing on his Instagram page on June 29, it is a collage made of over 3,000 20 cent coins from two periods of Hong Kong — one from the British colonial period featuring the profile of Queen Elizabeth II, the other was issued after the city was handed over to the People’s Republic of China as a Special Administrative Region, where the bauhinia flower, the symbol of the city, replaced the profile of the British monarch on the coin.
The surface of the coins became a canvas for the 27-year-old artist, who painted chemical solutions onto the coins to conjure the historical image of the signing of the Sino-British Joint Declaration in 1984 by then Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher – the moment when the fate of Hong Kong was sealed. The city began to prepare for a future under the framework “one country, two systems”, which promised 50 years unchanged of the city’s freedoms, rights and rule of law after Britain handed the city over to China in 1997.
Seeing Leung’s work depicting the blurry and fading historical image, I had a feeling of heaviness in my chest. I realised that the political turmoil that has shaken Hong Kong to its core today is not the cause but the outcome of a decision made in the past.
Did those who shook hands at the 1984 ceremony ever imagine what kind of future they had decided for us? Political tensions in Hong Kong never ceased to escalate over the past decade. From the anti-national education curriculum protests in 2012 to the Umbrella Movement in 2014, which saw the 79-day sit-in protests demanding universal suffrage as promised in the Basic Law, the city’s mini-constitution, seeds of resistance to changes according to Beijing’s will have been sowed. They sprouted last year as the government introduced a now-withdrawn bill that would have allowed suspects to be sent to stand trial in places that have no extradition agreement with Hong Kong, including mainland China. In fear of sharing the same fate with those who have disappeared, such as the missing booksellers who published political books and Chinese tycoon Xiao Jianhua, who was reportedly abducted from a Hong Kong hotel by Chinese agents, over a million took to the streets on June 9 to protest against the bill. Protests continued as the government refused to back down despite strong public opposition. Violence escalated as protests against one single bill were morphed into a large-scale pro-democracy movement, both the way the police suppressed the protests and the tactics of certain valiant protesters. Thousands have been arrested.
Beijing seems to want us to forget about Hong Kong’s past life. In recent years, when China was asked if it was still keeping its promise, in particular questions concerning Hong Kong’s freedoms, rule of law and universal suffrage under the Basic Law, the country has always responded that Hong Kong was a matter of “China’s internal affairs”, and that foreign countries, including Britain, should stop meddling with the city’s affairs, describing the United Nation-registered international treaty, the 1984 joint-declaration as “a historical document that no longer has any practical significance.” Hence the Chinese title of Leung’s work, loosely translated into English: Historical Document.
Nevertheless, the situation seems similar to the Hong Kong coins featured in Leung’s work from two periods and two systems. Even if there are a lot less coins from the colonial days still circulating around, both are still valid currency; likewise, in the eyes of many Hongkongers and Britain, the joint-declaration as an international treaty is still valid today.
But the monochromatic image that Leung painted on the coins is blurry – we can no longer see clearly the faces of Zhao, Thatcher and Deng Xiaoping, the former Chinese leader who came up with the grand idea of “one country, two systems”, as if it is some fading memory. The perspective image, obviously derived from the historic news photograph, also implies that whoever is looking at it is only an onlooker who has no stake in whatever is going in that picture.
Coins are money, a key signifier of the value of Hong Kong as an international financial centre. The two kinds of coins could be understood as a representation of two sets of values – one inherited from the British colonial era and the other as new values of the city under the Chinese rule. Can they co-exist? Supposedly yes, and that has been a firm belief not only for Hongkongers but for those from abroad who have an interest in the city.
But 36 years on since the signing of the joint declaration, the once crystal clear answer to the question above seems to be fading away, as if it was nothing but a fairy tale that exists only in people’s dreamy memories. Was “one country, two systems” a mere idealistic vision that lives only in people’s fantasy? Leung’s work seems to have answered a burning question with another, one that demands its viewers to carefully conte mplate the discrepancies between their memories from the past, reality of the present and imagination of the future. The deeper I dive into this, the more anxious it makes me feel. Is the future out of our control, or is this the path that has already been decided by our collective unconscious?
Timeline by Chan Sai-lok.
Whose timeline is it?
Giraffe Leung is not the only artist who looks to the past for an answer. Chan Sai-lok also looked backward with his memorable installation of Timeline (Hong Kong) featured in his summer solo exhibition Everyday Practice at 20 that opened at the end of May at the artist-run Hidden Space. But in addition to the past, Chan also took a peek at the future by expanding the perspective from looking at one end of the timeline to both ends. Recalling this work installed at a wall corner, I wondered for a fleeting moment if Chan was a fortune-teller in disguise, forewarning us of a major plot twist in this Hong Kong story, embedded in this twisted timeline.
A collection of 50 individual works in various shades of red and white made of fabric, silk, paper and acrylic sheet mounted on square and round frames, Timeline (Hong Kong) was installed at a wall corner. Half of them were installed on a red wall and the rest on the adjacent white wall. One end was a red round frame featuring the profile of Queen Elizabeth II; a white round piece with what looked like a bauhinia flower was hung at the other end – the iconic symbols of Hong Kong as featured in Leung’s coins work above. Chan told me that he painted the tiny dots on each frame meticulously, and each stood for one calendar year. The period of “50 years unchanged” agreed by the Sino-British Joint Declaration is supposed to run from 1997 to 2047, but this timeline took a 90 degree turn midway as it reached the wall corner.
Timeline by Chan Sai-lok.
The major plot twist came as the US President Donald Trump declared on May 30 (Hong Kong time) that “China has replaced its promised formula of ‘one country, two systems’ with ‘one country, one system.’” The remarks were made following Beijing’s decision to implement the national security law in Hong Kong after a year of political upheaval, during which the US had said that the city no longer enjoyed the autonomy it was promised, and that the country had decided to revoke Hong Kong’s preferential trade status under the US law. The footage of Trump making the historic statement that effectively certified the death of Hong Kong as we know it echoed that of the signing of the 1984 joint declaration. It was unreal and out of reach to most people living in the city, and yet they have no choice but to live the destiny that had been decided upon for them.
The national security law eventually came into effect in Hong Kong at 11 pm on June 30, 2020, the eve of the 23rd anniversary of the handover. It was passed by the National People’s Congress in Beijing, bypassing the local legislature in Hong Kong, and the provisions of the law were not revealed until after the law was passed.
This law, in the authorities’ words, prohibits acts and activities related to secession, subversion of the state, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces. Offenders could be sentenced to life imprisonment and could be sent to stand trial in mainland China if they are involved in “complicated” cases related to collusion with foreign forces. The law has also given the police sweeping authority to collect information and search premises without a court warrant, as well as the establishment of a mainland agency to operate in the city, independently from the local legal system.
The authorities tried to assure the people of Hong Kong that the law only targets a “small group of people” and that people’s freedoms and rights enshrined in the Basic Law are not affected, but incidents occurring shortly after the implementation of the law pointed to a different direction: the protest slogan “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times” has been deemed illegal by the government, which claimed that the slogan could violate the new law as it has a connotation of pro-independence and thus it is secessionist and subverting the state power. Possessing items displaying such slogans could also get people arrested, as demonstrated at this year’s July 1 impromptu protests. Books written by pro-democracy activists such as Joshua Wong have been purged from government-run public libraries, citing similar reasons. The city’s education minister also called for a ban of the unofficial protest anthem Glory to Hong Kong in schools. As pro-democracy legal scholar Benny Tai pointed out: “Under the Hong Kong national security law, every sentence said by every person at every moment could touch the red line and be said to violate the law.”
The immediate result is widespread fear. Within days, people were racing to scrub their social media posts containing political comments and install the secure messaging app Signal. Enquiries to open offshore bank accounts have been on the surge. Even western messaging apps Signal, Telegram and Facebook-owned Whatsapp have all stated that they have ceased to process Hong Kong authorities’ request for data as a result. Those who continue to protest will only carry a piece of blank paper instead of banners, and those who wish to continue to sing Glory to Hong Kong have replaced the original lyrics with one composed of only numeric digits. The New York Times have also announced that they will be moving part of its Hong Kong office to Seoul.
People’s reactions speak louder than the authorities’ words. And their fears are real, especially after the “810 crackdown”, when ten people, including Jimmy Lai – the media tycoon who founded the pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily – and 23-year-old activist Agnes Chow, were arrested on the suspicion of violating the national security law and other alleged crimes. The news made global news headlines, and the image of more than 200 police officers raiding the newsroom has scarred the minds of the people of Hong Kong, where the freedom of press has long been upheld.
Although they have all been released on police bail, the mass arrests in the name of the new law signified that the first part of Chan’s timeline is officially over. We have reached the wall corner, drifting over from one side to the other as if we were behind the wheel of a car racing through the entirety of an acute turn. The imminent fear of being persecuted for saying the wrong things will without a doubt alter the city’s cultural landscape in the future. The implementation of the law has also dramatically changed the positioning of Hong Kong, from an international hub and cultural melting pot to a city sharing a status similar to that of Iran and North Korea on the US sanction list, as eleven Hong Kong and mainland officials were accused by the Trump administration of curtailing the city’s freedom.
But how will this timeline play out as we are drawn closer to the other end? The division of a timeline into two sides and two shades of colours is not to create a dichotomy between the two but rather to show that fragments of history, scattered over the course of time, echo one another, as Chan wrote in his artist statement. A timeline might be experienced in a linear way, but it is not to be understood from a single perspective. Details of history are layered, like the way Chan put Timeline (Hong Kong) together, and they require close inspection in order to comprehend the big picture. Chan might have been the one who “wrote” this timeline hung on the wall, but who is/are responsible for the timeline of Hong Kong? The truth is, we all are, and we are bound together by our hopes and trauma.
Home sweet home by Mak Ying Tung 2.
A dream home for Hong Kong
The coronavirus pandemic has been keeping most of the mass protests away for months, as stringent social distancing measures such as the gathering ban have been in place. The streets that were once packed with hundreds of thousands people rallying against the government and demanding full democracy are now deserted. It might be a peaceful time for some, as no more tear gas or rubber bullets are being shot on a day-to-day basis. But the emptiness of the vacant streetscapes makes the city feel hollow, especially after July 1. Voices of the dissents that used to be heard in the streets have been silenced. Words spoken and written are chosen carefully to make sure that the red line is not crossed. A new normal has begun to dawn in Hong Kong.
Is the new Hong Kong the dream home we have envisioned? How should our dream home look like anyway? Artist Mak Ying Tung 2 explores this question with her conceptual series Home Sweet Home. First unveiled at her 2019 solo exhibition at de Sarthe Gallery, the work is a series of triptychs derived from the surreal digital images that Mak composed with The Sims, a popular life simulation game that allows players to design their dream world. Mak then divided an image into three parts and ordered different painters on the Chinese e-commerce platform Taobao to transport these virtual images onto canvases with acrylic paint and brushes.
The result is a series of odd paintings that are out-of-sync, and yet such an unexpected disharmony comes with a hint of dark humour. The images that Mak composed are bizarre, sometimes nonsensical, like the eerie vision in our dreams: a spacious living room that has a panoramic view of Hong Kong with strange arrangements of furniture; a baby’s bedroom full of cameras; or a swimming pool full of roses. And as each painting of a triptych is executed by different Taobao painters, the shades of colours, lines and objects do not synchronise with each other when they are assembled together. The discrepancies of the paintings accentuate the disharmony. The image looks nice and glossy from a distance, but they are disjointed when inspected up close.
Mak’s work is full of symbolism and is thoughtfully crafted to inspire viewers to contemplate the meaning and the discrepancies of different people’s visions of a perfect home, an urgent question that demands immediate attention as Hong Kong goes through these troubling times.
Mak’s fantasy of an ideal world that she built with The Sims is obviously a reference to a typical Hong Kong dream, to own a spacious home decorated with fancy furniture in a shiny skyscraper overlooking the stunning view of Victoria Harbour, equipped with a clubhouse that comes with a swimming pool, a gym and various facilities just like those featured in property sales brochure. But such fantasy is distorted when it is materialised by the hands of those residing outside of the city. What they see is only a part of the full picture, and the image they come up with is based on nothing but a superficial impression of the city.
The work is critical of the typical Hong Kong way of life. It directs viewers to question the vision of a perfect Hong Kong home that we have been presented with since a young age: a capitalistic society with no lack of materialistic enjoyment and satisfaction. It is a reflection of a homogeneous Hong Kong society that there is only one way to succeed, and that is to make a lot of money, buy a fancy property and meet your materialistic desire. What else is left to dream about in life? Nothing. The images of these triptychs from the series produced in 2019 contain no humans, no emotions, no love. How can one call this the vision of a perfect home? The images of an empty home are a slam on the hollow life that Hongkongers have been leading.
The hollowness echoes with the eerily quiet streets of Hong Kong these days, and that should not be how our dream home would look like. Major events in recent years, from rallies against the national education curriculum in 2012 and protests against the unjustified rejection of a free TV licence application in 2013, to the 2014 Umbrella Movement, a 79-day pro-democracy occupy protests demanding for universal suffrage, stem not just from people’s desire to defend their rights and freedoms and demands for democracy promised by the Basic Law. Their struggle to preserve their cultural identity is the fundamental cause. A dream home for the people of Hong Kong is simple, just give them what they are promised under the “one country, two systems” framework and let them live a free life that is rich not only on a material level but also on a cultural, emotional or even a spiritual level.
But it seems that this vision cannot be understood by those from the north. The distortion of the hand painted images of the Home Sweet Home series is either a misinterpretation of this vision or an imposition of what is thought to be good enough for those living here. How to bridge this gap? How to foster communication? Or is the thought of having people’s voices heard a mere fantasy? The answer cannot be found in the work, as one can only respond with a bitter laugh.
The future of Hong Kong and Hong Kong art
In recent months, I’m often asked what my future plans are. To be honest, I have no clue. I’m not going to sugar-coat the situation and say everything is going to be fine because it is not. But I have found at least some consolation in the art produced by Hong Kong artists; from their works I’ve learnt that I’m not in this alone, and that it’s unnecessary to numb myself with another spoonful of chili oil added to my dishes. I need to feel what everyone is feeling.
The past year saw an explosion of creativity in Hong Kong, a trend that first began during the Umbrella Movement. While political cartoons, protest art and infographics emerging from the city over the past year sent the world messages about the political turmoil., these creative expressions served as a form of visual diary dispatched at particular historical moments. Their creative energy represents the vitality of the people who made this city amazing in the first place.
Artists will carry this forward. “The greatest art is going to be produced in Hong Kong,” Abby Chen, the head of contemporary art at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, told me last year during our meeting in the city when the protests were still at their peaks. Art produced in Hong Kong in this day and age will carry exceptional weight. As the people of Hong Kong are bound together by the trauma and anxiety that we have experienced collectively, it is inevitable for artists, who are also members of this turbulent society, through their artistic creations to reflect upon our lives in this place that they call home. Their works will become the vessels of our hopes and fears, as well as our emotional sufferings, which will become an important record of what will be regarded as an important chapter of history in the future.