TRANSLATION(S) I-III AT OSAGE GALLERY HONG KONG
Curated by Zoran Poposki and Laurence Wood
Translation(s) I-III: Translating New Territories | May 11-20, 2o18 | Curators’ talk: 11 May 2018, 5 PM | Opening reception: 11 May 2018, 6 PM | Osage Gallery Hong Kong | 20 Hing Yip Street, Kwun Tong, Kowloon | www.osagegallery.com
Featured artists: Daniel Arnaldo-Roman (PRI), Justin Ascott (UK),
Damon Ayers & Tess Word (HKG/USA), Lynn Book (USA), Victoria Hindley (USA),
Arnold J. Kemp (USA), Jessica Ledwich (AUS), Luis Lara Malvacias (VEN/USA), Eva
Petric (SLO/AUT/US), Zoran Poposki (HKG/MKD), Tang Kwok Hin (HKG), and Laurence
Wood (HKG/UK).
Translation(s) I-III: Translating New Territories is a survey of the first five years of the international art project
Translations(s). Curated by Zoran Poposki and Laurence Wood, the exhibition at
Osage Gallery Hong Kong showcases a selection of more than 30 works of video
art, painting, and drawing by 13 artists investigating translation as a key strategy
of global negotiation and
interchange between agents from different cultures. In the contemporary
emerging network of new pathways between multiple formats of expression and
communication, our daily practices, as well as our sense of
self, rely on constant translation and mediation between identities and
cultures. The Translation(s) project explored that ongoing process of
negotiating complex cultural interplays.
Working under a curatorial concept encouraging
diverse explorations and interpretations of the theme, the artists featured in
the project explore perspectives of a world rapidly transforming into a global
translation space by the physical movement of people, and the consequent
mediation and negotiation to establish and understand new personal and
collective cultures.
Background
The first edition of Translation(s) I was
released in 2013 and was screened at international art festivals in Hong Kong,
Slovenia, Denmark, Italy, and Canada. The second edition Translation(s) II: Translating the City was screened in 2015 in Hong
Kong and Slovenia. The third edition Translation(s)
III: Bodies in Transit was screened in 2017 in Slovenia and the UK.
The artists in T1 used a variety of visual
approaches to translate the impact that living and working in different
cultures has upon them. Simultaneously personal and universal, global and
local, sometimes our contemporary lives can seem like journeys in an apparently
chaotic universe, a territory which may be travelled forwards and backwards in
time and space. In this changing terrain, our daily practices, and our sense of
self, can rely on constant translation and mediation between identities and
cultures. The project explored that ongoing process of negotiating complex
cultural interplays.
T2 (Translating
the City) explored urban space and place through the medium of video,
employing a variety of strategies and interdisciplinary approaches, from
mapping and public space performance, to the exploration of spatialized
identities, cultural memory, and cultural translation. The participating
artists reconsidered the city as a space of negotiation and interchange between
agents from different cultures, the scene of an ongoing process of translation.
T3 (Bodies
in Transit) explored one of the most topical issues of contemporaneity: the
traversing of borders. Migration, immigration, and refugees, people and
cultures meeting, mixing, melding or clashing, forcing collectives and
individuals to come face to face with difference or similarity, and to consider
questions of our underlying common humanity.
About the curators
Zoran Poposki (MFA, PhD) is a transdisciplinary
artist, researcher, and educator, exploring themes of (cultural) translation,
spatial epistemology and social practice. His work has been shown in numerous
exhibitions, screenings and festivals worldwide.
Laurence Wood is an artist based in Hong Kong and
the UK. Formerly Head of College and the Dean of Fine Art, Architecture and
Further Education at the University for the Creative Arts in the South East of
England, he is currently a Professor in the Department of Cultural and Creative
Arts at the Education University of Hong Kong.
Acknowledgments
Osage Art Foundation / Artfirsthand / The
Education University of Hong Kong.