Hok Zaap
Foreword
Hok Zaap is an alternative art teaching module. By establishing a platform for exchange and co-learning, it aims to reach out to different communities and interact with society through art education.
In Hok Zaap, we cooperated with artists Zheng Bo and Luke Ching Chin Wai and launched two sets of teaching plans – Zheng Bo worked with weeds again. He brought participants to observe and paint weeds in different regions of Hong Kong, while seeingmodern society afresh from the perspective of weeds; Luke Ching focused on the research on Hong Kong’s Filipino culture and the cultural exchange between Filipino and Hong Kong students, connecting the two places through language and creative worksso as to break geographical boundaries by means of culture.
Organizer : Rooftop Institute
Sponsored by：Hong Kong Arts Development Council
Zheng Bo: Hui Ti Xiu (‘Practice of Drawing Weeds’ Course)
Draw (繪)：sketching from nature
Tares (稊)：weeds, as narrated in Zhuangzi’ s classics
Cultivate (修)：practice
Slow down your pace in the midst of this ‘international city’. Let go of your daily rhythm and focus to look for the weeds between the cracks. Drawing enables us to quieten down and perceive the power beyond us. As the Chinese saying goes, through observing a small start, we can foretell its development. In the same vein, we can look into the present moments in face of ecological threats to understand how we can communicate and cooperate with all living things on Earth so as to create a Good Anthropocene.
How can we learn from weeds? How can we listen to their life stories? How can we stop clinging to human-centred ideologies? How can we become true homo sapiens？
In 2018-2019, Zheng Bo conducted “Practice of Drawing Weeds”, in which he led a walk in three different area: Central, Long Ping and Tung Chung, observing and drawing weeds along the route.
Event link:
Season 1: 25th Aug, 1st Sep, 8th Sep 2018
https://www.facebook.com/events/249300069237094/
Season 2: 25th Nov, 2nd Dec, 9th Dec 2018
https://www.facebook.com/events/2333998066831319/
Season 3: 12th Jan, 13th Jan 2019
https://www.facebook.com/events/2013181608728232/
In ‘Practice of Drawing Weeds’ course, Zheng Bo brought participants to different regions in Hong Kong to observe the human condition through the perspective of weeds.
Central
25 August 2018, 25 November 2018 , 12 January 2019, 13 January 2019
Setting off from Central station, the group walked around the footbridges in Central and Sheung Wan to observe the conditions of urban weeds.
Long Ping
1 September 2018, 2 December 2018
The group visited the brownfield area in Wang Chau to observe the weeds growing at various spots and to learn about the land politics of the region with Liber Research Community researcher Yeung Ha Chi, who has published a book discussing local the land use issues.
Tung Chung
8 September 2018, 9 December 2018
Participants walked and drew along Upper Cheung Sha Beach. They finished the session by burying the drawings in the ground.
About the artist
ZHENG Bo is an artist, writer, and teacher, committed to socially and ecologically engaged art. He investigates the past and imagines the future from the perspectives of marginalized communities and marginalized plants. He has worked with a number of museums and art spaces in Asia and Europe, most recently Hong Kong Museum of Art, Times Museum (Guangzhou), Power Station of Art (Shanghai), Ming Contemporary Art Museum (Shanghai), Sifang Art Museum (Nanjing), TheCube Project Space (Taipei), CASS Sculpture Foundation (UK), and Villa Vassilieff (Paris). He taught at China Academy of Art in Hangzhou from 2010 to 2013, and currently teaches at School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong. In 2016, he received Commendation for outstanding achievements in the development of arts and culture from Secretary for Home Affairs, Hong Kong SAR Government.
Luke Ching Chin-wai: HK-PH student exchange project
If there were a highway between Hong Kong and the Philippines, the taxi fare would cost about $5000. In fact, if we would like to learn about Filipino culture in Hong Kong, we can easily come across a Filipino or a Filipino community in five minutes. Hong Kong and the Philippines are so far apart and yet so near! However, most of us know nothing about the Philippines.
Luke Ching Chin Wai thinks there exists invisible boundaries between the local and the Filipino communities, and language andcreative works are ways to break the boundaries. Luke led a number of workshops with local primary school students at Tai PoOld Market Public School (Plover Cove) and Y.C.H. Choi Hin To Primary School to offer more perspectives to understand the Philippines and its culture through different activities. The local students collaborated with Raya School and Olalo Primary School in the Philippines, understanding each other’s cultures through language and art.
The language learning in the lessons might not be accurate, but it reflected the eagerness to communicate. Luke hopes students can extend this eagerness to their daily lives and try to communicate more often with the Filipino in their local communities.
Participating schools:
Hong Kong: Tai Po Old Market Public School, Y.C.H. Choi Hin To Primary School
The Philippines: Raya School, Olalo Primary School
Visiting Filipino partnering schools
24th – 29th September 2018
Between 24-29 September 2018, Luke Ching and our member paid a visit to two Filipino partnering schools to research and conduct workshops with students, making a good start for the subsequent exchange with the two Hong Kong primary schools.
Language exchange
Philippines: 24th, 27th September 2018；Hong Kong: 15th October,18th October, 22nd October 2018
Acting simultaneously as teachers and learners in this language exchange, students in Hong Kong and the Philippines learnedFilipino and Cantonese respectively from each other through video recordings.
HK-PH city drawing
11th October, 18th October, 22nd October, 22nd November, 10th December 2018
Through postal correspondence between Hong Kong and the Philippines, students from two places co-created drawings of their co-imagined city, generating a cityscape composing of two different cultures.
Easy to Learn Tagalog*
29th October, 8th November, 15th November, 26th November 2018
*Tagalog, national language of the Philippines.
Luke led primary school students to create Tagalog learning cards following the concept of Pidgin English. Based on Tagalog,students presented the meaning of Cantonese pronunciation by means of drawings.
Exploring Filipino culture in Tai Po
18th November, 16th December 2018
Luke led students to explore the Tai Po Market area through various activities such as observation, shopping for groceries and chatting with migrant workers to understand their background and language. Luke enabled students to have a more comprehensive insights and understanding of the Filipino culture beyond textbooks and school lessons.
About the artist
Luke Ching Chin-wai was born in 1972. He is the one of Hong Kong’s most active conceptual artists, he challenges the social system with a good mix of humor, responding and interrogating the cultural and political collisions occurring in our city. Ching’s works range from photography, sculpture and video to social intervention, often made as a spontaneous response to his surroundings. With a particular focus on the city, his works attempt to explore the people and places around him, by careful observation and then rebuilding a city with works that sit in between real life and fiction.
Luke Ching Chin-wai was born in 1972. He is the one of Hong Kong’s most active conceptual artists, he challenges the social system with a good mix of humor, responding and interrogating the cultural and political collisions occurring in our city. Ching’s works range from photography, sculpture and video to social intervention, often made as a spontaneous response to his surroundings. With a particular focus on the city, his works attempt to explore the people and places around him, by careful observation and then rebuilding a city with works that sit in between real life and fiction.
Ching has an incredible sensibility towards the most ordinary daily objects, which he manages to twist and manipulate imaginatively to create a new narrative. Strange yet familiar, and presented with a new context, viewer’s attention is drawn to something easily overlooked in our daily life.
Luke Ching earned his MA in Fine Arts in The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He was rewarded Artist of the Year(Visual Arts) by Hong Kong Arts Development Council in 2016. Over the past two decades, the artist has participated exhibitions and residencies locally and abroad. Ching’s recent solo exhibitions include Gallery Exit, Hong Kong (2016, 2014), Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery, UK (2008). Notable group exhibitions include Gwungju Biennale, South Korea (2018),Tai Kwun, Hong Kong(2018), 1a space, Hong Kong (2016), Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei (2015, 2011).
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