If there's only one exhibition you see this summer, let it be Embassy S ites at Tomorrow Maybe.
We’re so excited to see Hong Kong artists garnering attention abroad and also right here, thanks to the many excellent art galleries across the city. One show you’re not going to want to miss this summer is Embassy S ites by Christopher K. Ho, currently running at Tomorrow Maybe inside Eaton HK.
Born in Hong Kong and raised in New York, Christopher K. Ho is a speculative artist with a background in architecture and art history. Having exhibited in galleries including the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Queens Museum and MASSMoCA, we were thrilled to chat with him about his latest exhibition at Eaton HK’s Tomorrow Maybe: Embassy S ites. With works spanning the mediums of sculpture, audio-scape and two-dimensional art, the softly-spoken and thrillingly thoughtful artist took time out of his busy schedule to explain more.
Hi, Chris. Congratulations on the opening of Embassy S ites, and thanks so much for taking us on a personal tour of the exhibition. Firstly, tell us a bit about the transformation of the space in the gallery itself for the show.
Well, I studied architecture as an undergraduate, and I think that comes through in my work as an artist. One of the first things I did when I came into the space was to think about what I could do to change this relatively odd shaped gallery.
The space itself is actually five times as large as the space we’re standing in now, and I wanted to make a bold move and resize the gallery to the average size of a hotel room in Hong Kong. It reflects the site we’re in within Eaton HK, and then the airplane noises, that you can hear right now as we talk, speak to the flight path we would have been on to the old Kai Tak airport.
In your own words, what would you say is the inspiration for Embassy S ites?
I’m interested in picturing a particular kind of subject that traffics between two countries, it’s the subject of Transnationalism. I began by thinking about what the proper nouns would be that surround this particular subject. So, for me, it would be surrounded by things like sim cards, credit cards and WhatsApp, and they’re some of the things that guided the exhibition.
This idea of transnationalism is especially interesting in the era in which we live, where it’s a lot more popular to live abroad and away from one’s home country. Do you you define yourself as transnational?
I’m figuring that out. Part of this exhibition is the process of figuring that out. It’s a hard question, and I’m still not sure if we need a definitive answer.
Hong Kong itself has always been a place that’s struggled with, not just transcience per se, but of finding its identity.
What are you hoping that people are going to take away from this exhibition?
I hope that when people come into the exhibition they feel a familiarity with the objects, even if they are not necessarily familiar with contemporary art. And I hope that they resonate with those objects. Almost everyone who has come in so far has said that they’ve had encyclopedias growing up, they’re something many of us are familiar with, no matter where we’re from.
Embassy S ites by Christopher K. Ho runs until 28 August 2019 at Tomorrow Maybe.