How Hong Kong mixed-media exhibition Make & Believe, with its constantly changing works that blend art and technology, asks us to reconsider what’s real
- At Tai Kwun until January 28, Make & Believe features video, music, painting, mechanical installation works and more by six artists who question reality
- Moving pieces, one of which references a massage parlour, create an experience unique to each viewer, while live shows examine our relationship with performance
What makes an art exhibition different from a theatre production? What is a performance without human performers? As spectators, how are we supposed to take in a mixed-media bundle of loosely related works presented as a whole?
These are questions raised in a new exhibition at Hong Kong’s Tai Kwun arts centre called “Make & Believe”, which blurs the line between reality and imagination.
The exhibition integrates art from multiple disciplines, including text, painting, music, soundscape, lighting, scenography, and mechanical installations to create active viewing possibilities that are never the same for two viewers.
“The artworks are of different disciplines and each element stands alone, yet they collaborate [to produce] a harmonious experience,” says Orlean Lai Wan-yin, the exhibition’s curator and producer.
The exhibition is unique to each viewer because its parts are constantly moving and changing to obscure or reveal certain aspects; the viewer cannot survey all corners of the theatrical stage at once, she adds.