Polluta—Floating Artist Colony in the Sky
Michelle Kuen Suet Fung
Gallery 2
Opening 03.07.19 6-8pm
Artist Talks 25.07.19 6-7pm
In 2084, the imaginary country Contradictoria has solved its pollution problem with Plan Polluta. Under this plan, air pollution is condensed into building bricks, which are used to build arcologies called Polluta, floating green vibrant live/work colonies for artists! Artists can live, work and show for free, forever! It sounds too good to be true. It is.
Polluta addresses the collective memory of Chinese modern history and envisions China's ecological future from Hong Kong’s unique vantage point. The exhibition features..
Propaganda Banner Paintings & Propaganda Woodblock Prints
These paintings exhibit playfulness, dark humour, subversion, and contradictions, and tell a double-edged joke about both the bizarre world of Polluta and the twenty-first century the artist inhabits.
Loosely based on modern Chinese propaganda posters, these works are a mesh of the childlike, the political, and the vernacular. Each work is based on a child's drawing: the artist visited schools to share the imaginary world of Polluta and to invite children to design the community. Imagined by children uninhibited by social norms and rules, Polluta is fluid and ever shape-shifting. The sky is not the limit. It is the beginning.
Polluta Residents' Portraits
These brand new works subverts Polluta as a utopian artist commune. Fung invited her artist friends to join Polluta, asking them to fill out an entry form and express their opinions on the problem(s) of today's art ecology. The result is sometimes humorous and sometimes unsettling. The viewer can enjoy a glimpse into the art world from an insider's perspective.
On the opening night, Fung will perform a brand new performance: a series of monologues from various invisible Polluta characters such as the janitor responsible for the flying elephants' dung and the leader of the underground society AA, Artists Anonymous. The performance will reveal secrets of the seemingly perfect Polluta.
There are five imaginary countries in total: Contradictoria, the Aristocratic Union, Dreamland, Northlandia and the Republic of Strata. These five micro-narratives will eventually weave together a grand narrative of year 2084, portraying the artist's imagined futuristic geopolitical world in the Anthropocene.
This exhibition is supported by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council.
Hong Kong Arts Development Council fully supports freedom of artistic expression. The views and opinions expressed in this project do not represent the stand of the Council.
